South African death metal outfit Vulvodynia are set to decimate Australian audiences when they make their long-awaited return in November.
Vulvodynia have left no stone unturned since the easing of restrictions, having recently returned from Europe before taking a few weeks to recover and heading back for a US assault.
Their growing reputation is reward for sustained effort, with last year’s album Praenuntius Infiniti seeing the band take that vital next step in their musical development.
With a devastating amalgamation of brutal slamming metal with melodic technical metal, Vulvodynia have created their own brand of aggressive music that, in the words of vocalist Duncan Bentley is “the most brutal thing you’ve ever heard; the equivalent of a sewer flowing through your ears and into your brain.”
HEAVY caught up with Duncan for clarification and started by asking what preparing for a tour to Australia is like for a band on the other side of the world.
“It’s the most brutal thing you’ve ever heard; the equivalent of a sewer flowing through your ears and into your brain.”
Duncan Bentley
“Being a band from South Africa, not a lot of other bands have done what we’ve done,” he verbalized. “During COVID we realised that we had taken the whole touring thing for granted and we didn’t realise what we had until it was gone. Now we are so ready to just be on the road for the whole year pretty much. Like I said, there are very few bands from South Africa doing what we are doing so it’s an awesome thing being able to go over and inspire bands this side to try and aspire to bigger things because there’s so many amazing artists in South Africa and a lot of them give up before they can even travel overseas. We’ve been doing this for quite a while, and we hit Australia last in 2019 and that was a hard tour for us because it was during all of the forest fires and things like that there in Australia and I remember we had to take some crazy detours to get to some of the shows. This time around it’s going to be a lot easier. I think as a band from South Africa preparing to go over that side, it’s quite difficult. It’s harder for us to get visas than most other bands from other countries and things like that, but when we’ve gotten to the level that we are at now it’s actually quite simple for us to go over. Australia is so similar to South Africa weather wise and I feel like with how friendly the people there are that going over that side is like being at home playing shows (laughs).”
In the full interview, Duncan runs us through what to expect from the shows, the response to Praenuntius Infiniti, cramming as much in on tour in a short amount of time, their style of music and how it comes together, capitalizing on momentum and more.
