INTERVIEW: Inside the genius of Sorcerer, and their medieval masterpiece Devotion
Sorcerer's latest album is a sword-swinging, doom-laden magnum opus of Metallic Hardcore, and guitarist Guillaume Scaillet takes Altopsy inside its cold and medieval world.
Hardcore can do a lot of things, but making you feel like you’ve just stepped over the threshold of your city’s walls as its doors creak and slam shut, lit only by the torch in your hand with warmth that won’t reach your extremities, with foolish bravery giving way to the fear hidden in the sheer silence that awaits before you isn’t exactly chief among them. After all, people didn’t do silly walks in the 15th century. Unless they had dysentery.
Modernity is key for a lot of bands these days, naturally occupied by telling stories from their local communities and railing against the frustrations of the time, and even if Mindforce swings swords, their sonic influences are audibly owed to Thrash and the Metal of the ‘80s. Some influences lie deeper, though - further away, in untouched reaches and in places that you wouldn’t think to find it. Enter Sorcerer, a band that couldn’t have named themselves better if they tried.
The Metal-led Hardcore band has undergone an evolution with each of its releases, finding new atmospheres to explore seemingly every time they pick up an instrument, but it’s their latest record Devotion that stands as the band’s absolute finest work - the album dedicates itself entirely to an oppressive sound relative to a world of knights, kings and disease, without ever compromising its moshability. It’s a balancing act that seems impossible, but speaking with guitarist Guillaume Scaillet, it becomes clear that Sorcerer is the only band with the chops to bring a world like this to life without losing its modern authenticity.
In the Heights
When Altopsy sits down with Sorcerer guitarist Guillaume Scaillet, it’s on the final day of Reality Unfolds Festival, after we spoke to Shooting Daggers - and it’s in a noisy basement, crammed into a pew in the back corner of a downstairs bar, constructed of exposed bricks and wooden beams of a deep, dark brown. Somehow, this cold, almost Victorian-looking pub basement is exactly where we’d hope to find a band as in touch with history as Sorcerer, and it seems like the perfect place for the Hardcore mob to bring their UK tour to a close.
“We are honestly kind of surprised that our first UK tour allowed us to headline shows, because for us, the UK is such a big thing,” Scaillet tells Altopsy. “As a Euro Hardcore kid, you are always looking up to the UK as a stronghold of Hardcore. We are really happy to be that welcome, and to feel that people connect to the music. We know that you guys basically invented Hardcore, so it’s really cool.”
The connection of fans and Sorcerer is a fascinating one - it’s not as immediately relatable or literal as many other bands on this bill, singing about UK politics, fighting for Queer rights or anything else that you might call up-to-date - Sorcerer find their inspiration elsewhere, looking to the Medieval world to define their latest record Devotion, a master stroke of welcoming the melancholy and cold of the Dark Ages to crushing Hardcore. It’s not an immediate relation to the work of Devotion that forges the fan to the music, but more of an admiration for its theme as a matter of historical interest. And for Sorcerer, this is a combination of knowing what Hardcore is about, and what Hardcore could be about.
“We try not to go in a direction that would be too obvious for us, because Hardcore is a really framed style. You’ve got some strong history from the US, from the UK… so you’ve got codes that you have to respect in order to be part of the scene and to be recognized. And I think with Sorcerer, we acknowledge these codes, but we also try to not limit ourselves with these. We try to think maybe wider, and to bring more influences in, in the music and in the imagery. Obviously we are Hardcore kids, so Sorcerer will always be a Hardcore band in a way. But it’s totally okay if sometimes we stray from this path.”
Lands of Fire and Sulfur
It’s all well and good to want your band to be fresh - after all, for many creatives, there’s no point in the craft if it doesn’t say something new - but Sorcerer has put in more work than most to make this happen. Thankfully, Scaillett’s history in the world of movies as an award-winning screenwriter and time investing in cinema has helped to define the intricacies that make the band feel as though they’re from another world entirely.
“The band is called Sorcerer, which is a classic movie from the 70s from William Friedkin,” he says. “The label, which is a friend’s label we began with, is called Delivrance Records, so it’s also [based on] the John Boorman Deliverance movie. All the imagery we use for the merch is taken from that specific area from American cinema from the ‘70s. The model from the artwork of the Devotion LP is a comedian that is well known in French for a TV show [Alain Delhaye, known for his appearance in P'tit Quinquin], which is kind of weird. So we try to keep this cinematic vibe, because it’s just as we are.”
It’s hard to describe Sorcerer as anything other than cinematic, as Scaillet puts it - every pummeling riff, shrieking guitar line and haunting mid-section feels as though it is built in service of something larger. Devotion is a story told in broad strokes, and paired with its melancholic presentation, it builds a remarkable atmosphere that evokes the final existential night on the hill before the siege of a great fortress, forcing the listener to grapple with just how they ended up where they are.
It’s music for an entirely defunct and flawed culture, built masterfully with the parts that have built our community in the modern age. And even with music that feels forged with an anvil and hammer, it doesn’t relent with its crushing mosh parts and mic grab moments. Frankly, we’re lucky to get to bear witness to Sorcerer now, as they feel like a snapshot of an alternate history.
“It’s all a question of how you build a song,” Scaillet muses of how the world of Devotion came to be. “And it’s really interesting. It’s kind of the same thing about when you edit a movie, for example. So, I guess that’s a connection I made with the work I do as a cinematographer, but as a director, I try to build some art out of just writing the music.”
The beast that Sorcerer has created, both thoughtful in its construction and lethal in its execution, truly is a sight to behold, even if when the band started, it wasn’t intended to be much special. Scaillet confesses that when the band was started with singer Dom Lucas, it was only really intended to be a Hardcore band built on homages to the world of metal. It’s good news that the band has become what it has, though, as it seems rewarding to the band, not just in the incredible reaction that fans offered them at New Cross Inn when they launched into their triumphant set.
“I don’t know how we managed to arrive at this point, but it’s a thing that makes me really happy, because I’m really tired of having to choose one side of the scene or the other. I’m really happy to feel that I can bring all of what I love about music, into this band, and it speaks equally to the Hardcore kid who likes beatdown and tough music, and also to the emo kids and death metal guys, and metalheads who just like heavy riffs.”
Time to Break the Vow
Sorcerer has the world at its feet. Though they still have a direction to climb in to put their work in front of more fans with their upcoming sets at Revolution Calling and Return to Strength, creatively, they’re already exactly where they need to be. It isn’t enough to satiate Sorcerer to be the same band forever, though, and much like the transformations the band underwent from their Joy EP until now, they will shapeshift again.
“It’s quite exciting to start now and to have the time to see where we are going with that,” Scaillet says of Sorcerer’s songwriting, looking to the future. “[We’re] trying to keep the same energy and the same way of conceiving things, but it also can’t be like when we wrote Devotion, because Devotion now exists. We have to acknowledge that. Devotion identifies Sorcerer’s sound now, and we love that too - so we have to stick to this energy and identity, but to try to make it evolve and prevent us from doing the same thing over and over again.”
Evolution is a big word for a band that has found something so immediately iconic and easy to associate with them, but somehow, it seems that Sorcerer will never stop growing and adapting. After all, with Devotion sounding as unique as it does, with so many influences making up the molten metal that was forged into this swift blade of an album, there is little doubt that more will create Sorcerer’s future - perhaps even sharper and sleeker than ever before. Whatever war lies ahead for Scaillet and his cavalry, one thing is for sure - it will be a battle well won, and one for the history books.
Listen to Devotion here: Apple Music | Spotify | Bandcamp
Into the Dungeon
Every week at Altopsy, I’d like to take you inside what I’m listening to as I dig around for the best alternative releases about. Take them for a spin and share your thoughts on social media or in the comments! For this week’s pick…
Black Flag - Damaged (1981)
An incredibly early example of what Hardcore can do to build a community, the debut from Black Flag is an unbelievably fun, silly, and melodramatic ride. The ‘80s doesn’t seem like the sort of place where you’d find the whirlwind that’s packed into Damaged, practically serving as the blueprint for the band that the snotty punk boyfriend in any number of comedy movies with its in-your-face, fuck-you, I-don’t-care-if-your-advice-is-good-I-won’t-do-it-just-because-you-told-me-to attitude. By now, it has become a reflection of an older idea of Punk attitudes, but wipe that away and meet it where it is, and Damaged is a total blast.
Black Flag bear all of the expected marks of the Punk on Damaged, but thankfully, they do so with a commitment that wasn’t seen so easily at the time, and it serves as a raucous time capsule of how feral Punk could be at the time. Whatever any Punk band did for years after that came with a sentiment about being fucked up, hating the status quo or rejecting the brainwashing of the TV, it felt like it was ripping off Black Flag thanks to their work on Damaged. And luckily, they did it pretty well. It’s a shame that Black Flag broke up in the ‘80s and never came back again, right?
Listen to Damaged here: Apple Music | Spotify