Introducing: Doom death metal band The Black Harvest from Puerto Montt, Chile!
The Black Harvest had its genesis around 2004, founded by Matt Svh. During a decade, ideas were recorded and lyrics were written, leaving them to seed and ripen. The sowing was fruitful around 2014, when it was finally decided to record the first demo, named »Mysterious Glory Of Immortality«. Initially, for these ideas to not go to waste, Matt decided to track them and mix them, and see what could come from this creative chaos. The result was a combination of slow melodies and heavy guitars with a clear influence of Black Sabbath, Saint Vitus, Pentagram (USA), to name a few icons of the genre. But it wasn’t until 2007 that some melodies started to shape up by adding lyrics and rhythms. 7 songs were recorded from that stage that were not released due to not yet being pleased with the final result, thus requiring further work to find a definitive form to the style of the project.
Winter 2013… It wasn’t until 7 years later that Matt S. decided to record 7 more tracks on drums, guitars , bass and keys… but he had not yet defined the atmosphere of the band, because for that he was missing vocals that could deliver the vibe of the ideas. After a search that took 2 years, Miguel V. (ex-Temple, ex- Eternal Rai, Ruined) joined the project. The first demo was edited for mass distribution in August, 2015. Self-produced and with a 100 copies limited edition, »Mysterious Glory Of Immortality« was the name of this work, in which »Austral Portrait« (a piece from 2004) was used as an intro and 7 new songs were fully recorded in Black Sheep Studios (the project’s own studio).
This demo has had good reception in the doomers international community, for presenting an original product, fusing some of the old Death Doom Metal of the early nineties with a more sophisticated touch from this era. In Chile, the album was self-produced by the band in CD format, while in Europe, it was left under the Till You Fucking Bleed Records label management from Poland, for tape format.
In late 2015, the band recruited Lino C. (Excoriate, Regnum et Mortem, ex-Temple) as a drummer, to materialize the first full-length album. Also, in 2016 Manu Vera (Ruined) and Moisés Alvarado (Gore Ceremony) were recruited as bassist and rhythm guitarist, respectively. Thus, the band’s official line-up was ultimately formed, for live performances and studio recordings.
Now, with the band formed, the first studio work was carried out. Lino C. recorded the drum tracks at ProSound Studio, located in the city of Puerto Varas. These tracks were then used in Matt S.’ Black Sheep Studio, where strings and vocals were tracked. The whole process took place during 2017.
For this project, Marcelo García was a special guest. Having been the vocalist for Bitterdusk (a doom metal band), he recorded the vocals for »The Bird Of Sickness«, the album’s closing song. The record’s master was sent to Australis Records, the label that reproduced and distributed the album in CD format.
The theme of the band departs a little from the traditional topics of the genre itself, and is aimed at lyrics related to the deviance and dark side of mankind; rape, pedophilia, murder, humiliation, sarcasm, anti-Christianity, psychological violence, paganism and sick nightmares… The name of the band is attributed to all of this: “The Black Harvest”.
In early 2018, Miguel V. made the decision to leave the band after the release of the debut album (under Australis Records). The reasons were never well understood. In his position, Jorge Quilape R., a resident of the city of Los Muermos (about 58 kms. away from Puerto Montt), took over the band’s vocal duties, in addition to being involved in Eucryphia at the same time. The growling vocals contrasted with clean passages added shades of darkness and density to the band’s performances.
During the pandemic (2020), the band went on hiatus for live performances, and started working on the pre-production of the second studio album, which would be titled »Mortuary Dogma«. This record was released under Australis Records. The recordings were done at the Black Sheep recording studio in the city of Puerto Montt.
Discography:
• Promotional Demo (self-produced, 2014)
• Mysterious Glory Of Immortality (self-produced, 2015)
• Of Wizards And Demons – Rehearsal Demo (Australis Records, 2016)
• The Black Harvest (Australis Records, 2017)
• Mortuary Dogma (Australis Records, 2023)
The Black Harvest is:
Lino Contreras – Drums
Manuel Vera – Bass
Jorge Quilape – Vocals
Moises Alvarado – Guitars
Matt S. – Guitars
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well