Interview: Luana Dametto (Drums) of Crypta (Written/Video/Audio)

Brazilian death metal outfit Crypta will unleash their second beast of an album, Shades of Sorrow, on August 4, 2023 via Napalm Records.

We spoke to drummer Luana Dametto about the new album, the work that went into making it, how it sees the band moving forward, the joy of art and video creation, online trolls, and so much more. Listen to it via Soundcloud, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, watch/listen via YouTube below, or read the transcript that follows!

Hello Luana. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. How are you doing today?

Doing well. We are at the end of a tour, so just two more gigs and we’re done here.

How has the tour been going?

The tour is going well. It’s a short tour, it just a few dates and all of them have been pretty smooth, Some festivals, some club shows, all summery, so nothing to worry about. It’s just very easy when it’s summer.

Has it almost been a nice distraction from the long and winding build to a new album release?

Yeah, I mean, if I was at home right now just waiting for the album to be released, I would certainly be very anxious. Waiting for the release and seeing the music videos coming out and stuff. This keeps me busy.

As we are sitting here right now, we’re one week away from the release of the album, the stunning Shades of Sorrow, out August 4th via Napalm Records. Where’s your head at with it right now?

I am excited to hear what people think about it, I want to know what people think about it. All the critics and all the reviews, whatever comes, to be honest, whatever comes is good. It’s just commentary on it and I’m excited to hear what people think, about the new sound and new songs.

The very positive reaction to the singles so far, has that helped give you an idea of how you think the album will be received?

Yeah. I think it’s helping us to understand that it’s going to be fine. Every time we record a new album, we always have in our mind that, I don’t know, just insecurities that people are just not going to like it like the last one. That we changed this and that and maybe it’s not the right approach. I don’t know.

Even though we like our music ourselves, I still have lots of insecurities. If people are going to like my drumming and stuff so I’m very happy to hear that people are liking the new singles and the new approach that we took for the songs and the album. I would say it’s more or less like that. There’s lots of melodic songs, but there’s also lots of songs that are just brutal and straightforward. So, it’s for all tastes, really, which is always who we try to reach. So, you don’t get just like one thing all over again and then you’re leaving some people with a different taste behind.

I completely understand what you’re saying. It is a smorgasbord of incredibly heavy music, and it is a delightful release that I think is going to blow everybody away. It’s obviously an incredible step up from the debut as well. When you first began the process, did you have a clearly defined path you wanted to walk with this album? What did your vision look like?

When we were writing the songs, it was very natural. We didn’t ever stop to talk about going in a specific direction. In this band we all have very different tastes, even within death metal. Some of us prefer Florida style death metal, some of us Swedish style death metal, which is my case, melodic death metal and blackened death metal.

We try to bring everything into this band. The one thing we know for sure when we’re writing is that we have got to have some songs that go to a more melodic side and some that don’t. So, everyone is happy with the general outcome of the album, which I also think helps with getting new people to listen to the band. Not everyone is just going to like an entirely melodic death metal album and not everyone is going to like an entirely blast beat oriented album.

We didn’t have any meetings about it or didn’t settle on any specific thing. It was just all very natural. Even some of the riffs were written since Echoes of the Soul. It is a natural progression of Echoes of the Soul.

As you were working on it and as you were getting deeper into the guts of the release, to use a term like that, how did your process start to change?

Tricky question, I think we are always trying to get better as musicians, always, and trying to push ourselves to do things that are not so comfortable for us as musicians. so we know that with every new album, at least, even though it’s a natural progression from the last one, we know for sure that we are better musicians so we can do different things that we couldn’t play before or could play, but not enough to put in an album and go touring with.

I like that because ultimately that is development of a band. It’s a development of you as a group. Di you have any different approaches to song writing this time around when you compare what you did with Echoes of the Soul?

I wouldn’t say so. We are writing long distance. We all live very far from each other, even though we are all from Brazil, so everything is done on the internet. So, we have learned how the approach is and how the process is with writing over a long distance. That is what we kept with Shades of Sorrow. It was the same process and the same approach.

It’s just, I would say we’re slightly better musicians. So if anything sounds different, it’s because I would say it’s because of our musicianship, and because we have gotten more used to writing with each other. The other girls were learning how to write with us too. So that’s the only change is that we got slightly better and also we learned how to write with each other more.

The approach is the same, just more comfortable.

Yeah, we are more comfortable.

For you personally, what were some of the more challenging aspects of making this record?

To push myself to do things that I couldn’t before, and that’s the fun of it. Where’s the fun in playing the same kind of stuff and same kind of rhythm my entire life? It’s not fun at all. So, for me, my main challenge on this new album was to push myself to play these very fast things that are in almost all the songs.

I know that, live, I will be playing all of them. I will not have a break to rest in between one fast song to the other. To me that’s a challenge right now. I wasn’t used to that when I recorded the Echoes of the Soul, that was already a difficult album for me, which is funny to say right now, because now it’s a very easy album for me after all the touring. Now Shades of Sorrow is a new, difficult album for me.

Is it quite satisfying to be playing these songs live now?

It is. It is satisfying, but also very scary right now. We just started playing these new songs live, these two singles, and one of them is fine. It’s just like more of a continuation of the last album, drum wise. But the Trial of Traitors song is very fast, so it’s exciting. I also have to hope that every day I feel physically fine enough to play it properly and not be behind with the beat, one that I created myself.

Have you had the opportunity to, while playing it, look out into the crowd and see the reaction? I’d imagine it’s going to be quite chaotic. It’s such a fast and heavy song.

Yeah, the response from the crowd is very good. I would say people are very excited about the singles live, but during these new songs specifically, I keep myself back there, I’m so worried that I have played it correctly. I’m paying so much attention because I’m still not at the point in which I can just close my eyes and play.

From what I can see and when I can look to the crowd, it looks like they are enjoying themselves.

Sticking with the aspects of making the new record, what about an area that you found you really enjoyed more than any other?

I always enjoy more working with the visuals and the art aspects of any album. So, for me it’s always going to be cover art, talking to the artists, doing new layouts for the merch, the new single cover art and so on. It’s very exciting for me to do that, to be at home and just do these demos of pictures and sketches, send to people, talk over, find items and edits. For me, it’s even more fun than writing music. Dealing with the art aspect of it.

Do you find that allows you to get really imaginative when it comes to creating something that represents the music?

Yeah, I’m a very visual person. Before I was a drummer, I was working and studying graphic design. It was supposed to be my job before being a drummer. So right now, it’s nice that I can be a drummer and also graphic designer for the band.

Oh, I imagine you come from the school of wanting to see these albums on big gatefold LPs, with big artwork in the middle and stuff like that, right?

Yeah, that’s my biggest pleasure when we record an album, to get the album in my hands and to just look at the pages and the layout.

What about the video aspect? Is that something you like to delve into too?

I do. I really do like it. I’m writing or helping to write the script for most of them. From the Ashes, we worked with a director to make the music video, but we all sat down and talked through this script that I had and mixed with the ideas of the other members. The same with Trial of Traitors as well. I got this idea and we wanted to do something that looked like the Blair Witch movie.

We were there, behind the scenes, helping direct. It’s very fun. I mean, what can I say? It’s just fun. Even though sometimes we don’t have the budget to go crazy. it’s just fun to do whatever we can. Trial of Traitors was almost a zero-budget video and it’s one of my favourites. It was one of the most fun to record.

That is incredible. Watching that, you wouldn’t think that you wouldn’t think it was a no budget video.

I mean, the idea was very simple. And talking about it, we just realised that we didn’t need any budget to make it happen. Our tour manager and friend is also the guy that owns the studio in Sao Paulo that we record in. He does a million things and among the million things that he does, he’s also a professional photographer and video maker.

So we decided to go to this abandoned place at night in Sao Paulo, just set up our gear. We had a speaker right there playing the song so we could listen and play along. He recorded everything with his girlfriend having like a spotlight in our faces and that was it. There’s basically no editing to that video, so that also cuts costs. It’s just us playing in the dark, a guy with a camera and a woman with a flashlight.

I get why you love it now. You talk about Blair Witch. I mean, what is Blair Witch if not a low budget, but very successful movie. It really fits perfectly together.

Yeah, the idea was for it to be creepy. And there is nothing creepier than a video with no editing. It’s just very DIY.

Is there a specific track from the album that hasn’t been released yet that you’re really interested to see the reaction to, and if so, why?

Yes. It’s a song called Stronghold. I am very much looking forward for people to hear that one. I think it’s a great mix of everything we like in just one song, which is very difficult to make. Usually when we go for a more melodic approach, because some member likes it, we go full-on melodic for that song. Or when we decide that this song is going to be just brutal, fast and aggressive, it just goes all to that direction. I think Stronghold is a great song that mixes everything. There’s some black metal in it, some very fast death metal, and then it goes melodic and then it goes back to this and goes back to that. There are breakdowns. Almost every aspect of what we like is just condensed in that song. It’s one of my favourite songs on the album.

It sounds like it might have been one of the hardest to work on. Is that the case, or did it come quite easy?

We took a long time to write it because there were so many ideas that could fit in that song that we just had to stop and really choose what was going to make it, because otherwise it would be just this long song. Long, crazy song, full of riffs, but it would be just too much. Too much is too much.

Do you see this album release as an opportunity, first proper opportunity to really be able to shout the name of Crypta? I say that because as you got started, the world basically shut down and Echoes Of The Soul suffered a little bit because of that.

Yeah. After the pandemic, we were able to promote Echoes of the Soul quite well, but it was a little bit late. This is our first chance to promote the new album at the right time.

What would you hope or what would be a good measure of Shades of Sorrow’s success when you reflect on it, say, six months down the line?

I hope that it is musically more challenging than the last one. We are learning the songs, still memorising it. We didn’t have time after we recorded to rehearse or anything. I hope that when we really learn these songs properly and rehearse them a lot and a lot and play them over, that we realise that it’s really a good progression from the last one and that everyone can see it.

I will say I don’t expect much from when I release albums. I’m just always very curious to hear from people, very excited to hear what they have to say. I never have really big expectations. For me it’s always all very positive because I don’t expect much.

Expect the worst, then it only can only get better from there. Are you the type of person who does find themselves obsessing over online comments and reviews and videos on your content? Are you able to distance yourself from the opinions of people?

I love reading comments, all sorts of comments, negative comments and positive comments and just stupid comments as well. I find them all amusing. I don’t feel like I get ever hit by comments. I how to differentiate negative and positive comments and kind of distance myself from both of them.

For example, you can tell when something is just too hateful and then it’s just too much. Or you know, when something, for example, is too positive that it’s also not good. You’re the best, this and that, or this album is the best. You kind of know that that’s an over exaggeration of what it is in there. For me, it’s just fun to read the comments. So I always read as much as I can and I don’t take anything personally. It’s just a fun hobby. I would say it’s not that I read because I care, it’s just because I enjoy it.

That’s so good to hear, because it can be incredibly unhealthy, that entire experience.

As a woman on social media, anything you do and everything you do is commented on, always. It’s something I got used to over the years. I guess if I was younger, I would care about the comments and maybe get upset about this and that, or believe in comments that are like over exaggerations or something. After so many years and doing the same thing for so many years, you kind of learn how to just read it from afar and just take whatever you feel like it should be taken. And the rest is just the rest. It’s just a fun activity, really. Just comments. It’s just people. You’re always going to find very different opinions.

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