Horsham’s very own boyband?
Not quite. This is Dyscarnate, Horsham’s leading Death Metal band.

You mean, of all the millions of death metal bands in Horsham, they’re the best?
Okay, hardly an honour, but Dyscarnate are a well-respected band, hailed by metal magazines Metal Hammer and Terrorizer One critic called them “the best new death metal band in the UK, without question.”

Is death metal that horrible growling noise that sounds like Brian Blessed going through a saw mill?
it’s an acquired taste, but there is great skill  involved. Drummer and co-writer Matt Unsworth said: “We pride ourselves on song writing and making sure that everything in the song has a purpose – we don’t just throw things in for the sake of it or to show off. Henry and Tom try and pronounce everything so it’s not incomprehensible noise.”

They really don’t look much like a death metal band...
No, the band has already carved out a reputation for being the clean cut boys of Death Metal. They actually looked embarrassed for the AAH editor when he referred to bat-eating antics!

Have they always been like that?
Only in recent years have they smartened up. They are unrecognisable from the picture hanging in the hallway of QM Studios in Horsham. Vocalist and guitarist Tom Whitty said: “Five years ago we had the long hair right down our backs, band T-shirts and ripped jeans. But you grow up, get a job and change. We still love the music we play, but we don’t feel we have to dress a certain way to get our message across. We’re now known as the clean cut death metallers of the UK!”

They don’t look the part – do they sound the part?
They’re seen as one of the leading new acts of the death metal scene in the UK. Metal Hammer gave their first album 8/10 and it got 9/10 in Terrorizer, which are the NME and Melody Maker of the metal magazine world. The album, Enduring the Massacre, will soon be re-printed having shifted nearly 1,000 copies.

How can there be that many people into Death Metal?
It’s not for everyone, admittedly. The vocals in death metal represent a form of deep booming vocals into the microphone, but having seen it first-hand it’s not something anyone can do. It’s extremely demanding on the throat, tough to maintain the pitch and for those into the music it is very easy to distinguish a good vocalist from a bad one. As it happens, the death metal scene is becoming more popular.

An antidote to Ed Sheeran…
Maybe the lack of excitement in pop music is helping. Matt said: “There are pockets of fans everywhere and it’s a big scene without a doubt. There’s not a great deal we can do locally. We have a few fans around here but this kind of music is definitely picking up new fans and becoming more popular. We’ve been seeing that over the last few years.”

So how do you get into death metal then?
Much like the band members did. Tom said: “I’ve been friends with Henry since we were really young and both got into metal when we were about 13. You go through bands such as Metallica and Pantera and our tastes just got heavier and heavier.” They then met Matt a few years later and formed a band, playing where they could – including the Extra Time Bar in Broadbridge Heath. Matt said: There are always going to be youngsters who are into the most extreme kind of music they can find and if that is a bunch of sweaty, hairy people shouting on stage that’s what they are going to go for. That’s pretty much what we were doing!”

But somebody thought, ‘that’s a nice noise, I’ll sign them up!’
They did.The band self-released an EP in 2008 called Annihilate to Liberate and off the back of that got a bit of recognition. Eventually they signed to Siege of Amida and recorded their first album ‘Enduring the Massacre’ at Foel Studios in Wales, which has been used by bands such as The Klaxons and metal legends Napalm Death. After good reviews and successful tours the band, encouraged, decided to write a second album.

Who did the band tour with?
Most of the popular children’s party bands - Colorado grind band Cephalic Carnage, an Australian band called Psycroptic, Ion Dissonance from Canada and Hour of Penance from Italy. You may not have heard of them, but when we tell you that the first band mentioned there have attracted three and a half million ‘plays’ on their Myspace page, you can see how popular death metal can be.

So when’s the next record out?
And So It Came to Pass is out on February 27th, again through Siege of Amida. It has been recorded at Foel Studios but has been mixed and mastered by Jacob Hansen in Denmark. Matt said: “We’ve had some online reviews and it’s been really positive. It’s definitely a better album and much more listenable. The new single, The Promethean, is probably the catchiest song that we have done. We don’t want to be the heaviest or the fastest or anything like that, we just want to be a bit less chaotic.”

What do their parents think of the music?
Tom admits that his parents give gentle encouragement before politely leaving the room, but Henry Bates, the bassist and second vocalist, says his mum quite likes it. “She says that the new album is better than the last one,” he said.

Any live dates coming up?
There’s a tour in March supporting Fleshgod Apocalypse. They also hope to play a few festivals. Matt said: “You’ve got to have aspirations so if we can get onto a couple of festival bills that would be great. You’ve got things such as Download and Sonisphere in the UK and Wacken Open Air in Germany. There are often a lot of good underground acts and they attract new followers as giant headliners such as Iron Maiden attract huge crowds to these festivals.”

What does Dyscarnate mean anyway?
They used to be called Incarnate but so were many other acts so they looked to change it. Carno is a Latin word for flesh or meat, and Dys is associated with the Latin for diseased or bad, so we’re left with bad flesh or bad meat. Dyscarnate obviously sounds better.

Where can I find out more about them?
You can view the video for The Promethean, which features Lee Martin from the recently featured Tied to the Mast in an acting role – on Youtube, along with a number of other Dyscarnate clips. You can also view the video on the band’s Facebook page.