Unverkalt release music video for ‘Ænæ Lithi’

UNVERKALT, the Germany by way of Greece post-metal band, have released a music video for “Ænæ Lithi”, a highlight from their recently released third album Héréditaire. Dedicated in memory to the victims of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the song transforms historical trauma into a monument for grief.

Translating roughly to “Eternal Oblivion” in English, “Ænæ Lithi” mourns the years between 1914 and 1923, when Greek communities across Pontus, Ionia and Eastern Thrace were subjected to persecution, forced deportations, death marches and mass killings during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Creeping dissonance and a slow pounding of toms intertwine with clarinet and qanun, hand drums, strings and lyrics sung in Greek. “We are the source”, vocalist Dimitra Kalavrezou intones, her voice rising with the band into a swell that carries the full weight of what was lost.

The accompanying music video, which incorporates historical photographs from the catastrophe, was directed and edited by guitarist Themis Ioannou. “It is a great honor for me to create and share this video”, Ioannou says. “The story behind our song ‘Ænæ Lithi’ is deeply personal to me, as it is part of my own family’s history. I dedicate it to my beloved grandmother and my father, who are no longer with us. This video is for them, and for the millions of people who lost their lives or were forced to abandon their ancestral homes during and after the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922.”

“Ænæ Lithi” appears on Héréditaire, out now via Season of Mist. The album was recorded and engineered by UNVERKALT, with drums tracked by Christian Eggers at Noir Surge Studios in Berlin. Musically, Héréditaire traces the transmission of memory, trauma and suffering across generations—a concept the band describes as asking one central question: “What do we carry that was never ours?”

UNVERKALT formed in 2017 when guitarist and chief composer Themis Ioannou founded the band alongside vocalist Dimitra Kalavrezou. Their debut L’Origine du Monde drew praise from Metal Hammer Greece as one of the top records of 2020, while their sophomore effort A Lump of Death: A Chaos of Dead Lovers extended their reach to international press, with The Sleeping Shaman noting the band’s singular identity and Echoes and Dust describing it as “a beautiful slice of filmic post-rock.” Héréditaire marks their first release on Season of Mist, and their most ambitious work to date, introducing extreme vocals and blackened textures alongside the atmospheric sweep of their earlier albums.

Héréditaire was produced by Themis Ioannou, with vocal production by Dimitra Kalavrezou and Eli Mavrychev. Drums were recorded and engineered by Christian Eggers at Noir Surge Sound, Berlin, Germany. The album was mixed by Joshua Barber and mastered by Lasse Lammert at LSD Studios, Lübeck, Germany. Cover artwork is by Themis Ioannou, with photography by Phrenetica Photography & Design.

UNVERKALT are drawn to the edge. Since emerging from the underground, the Germany by way of Greece post-metal band have balanced boundless atmosphere with suffocating heaviness. Their third album and first since signing with Season of Mist doesn’t continue in that direction so much as it plunges into the darkness that’s always been waiting below. Héréditaire lifts the veil from our cursed existence. What emerges is Unverkalt’s heaviest and most heartfelt offering.

“Our aim has always been to blend softer, more romantic elements with extreme chaos. With Héréditaire that time has now come”, says the band’s guitarist and chief composer Themis Ioannou. “This album is a lament for what is far older than our very existence. It speaks of what seeps through generations, searching for an answer to one pervasive question: What do we carry that was never ours?”

From the beginning, Unverkalt was born from an urge to give life to grief. In 2017, Ioannou started the band with vocalist Dimitra Kalavrezou in hopes of creating something that was slow-burning and visceral, crushing yet delicate. Their debut made good on that promise: “…so rivetingly beautiful that you will have to deepen to digest it”, Metal Hammer Greece wrote in awe of L’Origine du Monde. “Easily on the top-10 of 2020”.

The band’s second album followed three years later to further acclaim. While swooning between obsession and annihilation, A Lump of Death: A Chaos of Dead Lovers sharpened Unverkalt’s vision by pushing their avant-garde streak with more force. “Beyond being able to point roughly towards a couple of different genres, it is utterly impossible to compare them to any other artist out there making music in the same vein”, The Sleeping Shaman admired. Echoes and Dust agreed: “It stands in its own right as a beautiful slice of filmic post-rock, a soundtrack without a movie beyond the one playing in your head”.

Héréditaire is still possessed by cinematic visions. Like a camera coming into focus, lead single “Die Auslöschung” appears through a thickening haze before it’s snapped out of a trance by drummer Christian Eggers’ fiery blast beats. The album shifts between colors, textures, even languages. Stirred by a mournful saw of strings, “Ænae Lithi” raises memories of the Great Fire of Smyrna that were handed down by Themis’ grandmother. But where previous albums took cues from French painting and European film noir, this one throws back the velvet curtain in favor a veil. “Oath Ov Prometheus” dismantles the myth of man as god’s perfect creation with Kalavrezou’s freshly blackened vocals.

“We love to experiment with every album”, Ioannou says. “With Héréditaire, we wanted to introduce extreme vocals because they bring out all these heavy feelings. It’s like they’re shaking you awake”.

While Héréditaire is a pulse-pounding new direction for Unverkalt, the album’s arc traces back to our deepest and darkest origins. Amidst the tremolo-picked wreckage of “Penumbrian Lament”, long-held beliefs are swallowed into the void of guitarist Eli Mavrychev’s death growls. “It’s all sorts of dead ideas / They cling to us all the same”, Kalavrezou whispers, only to break into screams on “Introjects” beneath Joscha Hoyer’s throbbing bass line. “The concept behind the record is tied in with the album’s overall heaviness”, she says. “Each song peels back another blackened layer of memory, trauma and suffering, which linger over us like ghosts: invisible, yet endlessly present”.

Kalavrezou’s mystifying cleans remain one of Unverkalt’s defining traits. Even when trembling beneath the monolithic riff of “I, The Deceit”, her contempt for those who stand by as the world burns is heated when forged alongside her Athenian brother-in-arms Sakis Tolis from Rotting Christ. But as the album draws to a close, Héréditaire ends shadowed in doubt for the future. “Bathed in lies / Can we make it better” she wonders before disappearing into the shivering wake left by “Maladie de ‘Esprit”.

“This album is not meant to resolve”, the band says, “but to dissolve patterns from those who came before, faceless yet familiar. The colors have drained. What remains is veiled in black, not as a symbol, but as a truth that covers everything”.

On Héréditaire, Unverkalt lift the veil on our cursed existence with their heaviest and most heartfelt offering.

Recording Line-up:
Dimitra Kalavrezou — Vocals
Themis Ioannou — Guitars, Keys
Eli Mavrychev — Guitars, Vocals
Joscha Hoyer — Bass
Christian Eggers — Drums