NE OBLIVISCARIS: A Challenging Return (2023)

By BRIAN GIFFIN

MELBOURNE prog metal extremists Ne Obliviscaris are about to embark on their latest headlining tour of Australia.

In support of current album Exul, the band recently returned from Europe where they played without their vocalist Xenoyr. Fellow founding member, co-vocalist and violinist Tim Charles, explains that it wasn’t a decision taken lightly but there were personal considerations that needed to be prioritised.

“The last few years has been a challenging period. He had some challenging stuff going on in his life and he just needed some time for himself. I think the pandemic changed a lot of perspectives on the importance of what we do. We create music and we’re passionate about it, and we love it, but there are things that are more important. I don’t think I would have said that a couple of years ago, because the band starts to become all-consuming and it feels like the most important thing, but health and wellbeing comes first, above all.”

It is inherently true that many other things can feel far more important than creating music, especially when the world is facing upheaval and crisis. It’s also true that it is often that music that can help us face those challenges. Charles admits as much, but is also candid about the pressure he faced pre-COVID, keeping the band on the rails.

“There are so many bands and artists that have had such a huge impact on my life,” he says, “and their music has played an important part in supporting what mindset I’m trying to get to, or get me through tough times. It’s a bit of a cliche to say that music can help you through a difficult time, but it’s true! It’s the case for a lot of people and I know it’s definitely true for me. The balance is that, as an artist, you have to balance your own wellbeing and offering something for the audience. For me, in 2019-2020, I was so burnt out trying to manage everything.”

By then, Ne Obliviscaris had been touring virtually nonstop for five years, breaking only to record and release 2017’s Urn in between excursions all over the world. It was quite a burden for Charles to shoulder as their manager and regular spokesman.

“I was really burnt out, so I look back at that now and ask, ‘How do we do this in a way where we can look after ourselves?’ Because when bands burn out too much, they break up! And that doesn’t help anybody. So, how do we get a balance of what we love, and share that with people in the community through albums and live shows, and balance that with our own wellbeing a bit better so we can continue doing this band in 20 years’ time?”

Remarkably, it’s already been 20 years since Xenoyr and Tim Charles first met and began putting together the band that would become Ne Obliviscaris.

“This Australian tour marks the exact 20th anniversary of when he and I first got together,” Charles says, “and the band sprung from there. Because it took nine years to get our first album out, some people have been aware of us for a long time – we played our first show in 2006 – but the reality is that a lot of people didn’t discover us until 2012.”

Exul had a long and painful gestation. Originally announced by their label Season of Mist for a 2020 release, the album wasn’t completed until late 2022. With two-fifths of the band living in Europe, the various forms of pandemic work and travel restrictions were even harsher for Ne Obliviscaris. In spite of the constant delays, Charles emphasises the importance they placed on ensuring the album was true to the vision they had for it.

“We had all these stops and starts that made it take a long time, but I was really determined to not take any shortcuts or lose my patience, and there was all this pressure to just finish it. But I was so clear about how I wanted it to sound, and I think it would have broken my heart to skip over anything just because of impatience, because it took so long. So I’m very proud that we stuck it out and gave it the time we needed.”

It is a painstaking attitude very much in keeping with the band’s creative process. Exul is only the band’s fourth album since 2012.

“It’s been 20 years [as a band] and we’ve only got four albums,” Charles admits, “which is probably less than some bands over the same period of time, but we like to think that we make each one count when we do release them. Personally I go into each album to challenge myself, and as a group to continue to challenge and experiment and keep learning and get better, in whatever elements we can find to get better at. When we start that process, I think we’ve been good at making sure we see that process through to its full extent so the album we have in mind is what we create.”

Preparations for the tour were also challenging. The band still had not been together in the same room for more than three years and drummer Dan Presland had departed the line-up after completing his tracking on the album. With Xenoyr sitting out the tour, Ne Obliviscaris not only had a new drummer, Benighted’s Kevin Paradis, to work into a band that had essentially never even rehearsed since 2019, they also had a stand-in vocalist, James Dorton of Black Crown Initiate. Charles cheerfully admits that it took them a while to find their groove once they hit the road, even if the crowds didn’t seem to notice or mind.

“It was pretty amazing, to be honest. I didn’t really know how long it would take to get into the flow of things. The first show was sold out, 800 people in Helsinki and to be honest we didn’t play the best. It was the first show in four years, playing a lot of the songs for the first time… the crowd loved it and we got a lot of great feedback, but for us, we felt that it was definitely not the best that we could do.”

With the first leg of international touring done and Xen returning to the line-up, Ne Obliviscaris opens their Australian run in Brisbane on September 6. Friday’s performance in Sydney at the Manning Bar has sold out (even while clashing with Napalm Death’s also sold-out show that night), an achievement that came as a surprise even to the members of a band with such self-determination and belief in itself.

“Every tour we do, I’m surprised that we’ve increased the ceiling,” Charles says. “When we first started out, I thought that packing out a small venue like most prog metal bands play would be the best that we could do, because our music is weird. I thought we’d just be a very underground band. So every time we get bumped up to a bigger venue, it surprises me in a good way because I go back to where we started and what I thought was possible, was wrong! I never thought we would get this big. Maybe one level up from where we were at. So our expectations have slowly changed, and it’s been a very special thing, and this will be a very special tour.”

Get tickets here.

EXUL AUSTRALIAN TOUR with The Ocean and Rivers of Nihil.

6/9: Tivoli, Brisbane

8/9: Manning Bar, Sydney

9/9: The Forum, Melbouren

10/9: The Gov, Adelaide