Chopping It Up with The Executioner

Much like the humans whose talents (or lack thereof) define them, every band develops at its own pace. Some take years to find their footing—to release that first demo, nail that first gig, or even get into the same room to hold that first practice. It's common to see even the best underground bands grind it out for years, if not decades, before getting a taste of the spotlight; the slow burn is a very, very familiar experience, and some never make it to that point at all. Had he been able to turn his eyes away from turtles long enough (or lived in the correct century), Darwin himself would've blushed at the bloodthirsty race to survive, thrive, and dominate that defines the metal world

That race isn't always a slow and steady, though. Some bands come roaring straight out of the gate and immediately make a splash. That trajectory comes with its own costs, but no one's pretending any of this shit is easy. Darwin may have blasted the theory of spontaneous generation to bits, but it's extremely fun watching a rad metal band spring up fully-formed and take a bite out of the competition.

Undulation is like that. The gorgeously melodic blackened death metal project released its first EP just last summer, but has been moving at warp speed every since. An Unhealthy Interest in Suffering is a rich banquet of brutality, ferocious and feral with a deeply poetic, macabre core. Standout songs like "Acid, Vinegar" hurtle straight for tech-laced oblivion, while "Dressed for Her Execution" show off guitarists Nelson Payne and Brett Tomsett twinned chops and conjure the kind of cold, velvety atmosphere of which Gothic nightmares are woven.

A big part of the band's appeal lies in the dynamic vocal stylings of The Executioner, who, like a medieval torturer, stretches their vocal chords to create gloriously inhuman sounds. Their operatic pipes push Undulation into a whole new dimension, and their guttural moments are just as impactful. "I think that that has a lot to do with my own style, letting myself sound the way that my body is allowing me to sound," they explain.

It's hard to believe that Undulation marks their first foray into the metal realm as an artist, but it turns out that their earlier work as a horrorcore rapper equipped them with some eminently transferable skills. They spent years performing and recording as the darkly sensuous Guayaba, then in the ghostly industrial/hip-hop project Ex Florist, and learned how to weaponize their voice and listen to their guts.

Whatever they're doing, it's working. Undulation's other members, including bassist Seth Deth and drummer Zach Purtell, all bring robust musical backgrounds of their own to the project, from digital hardcore to black metal to powerviolence. As they told Stereogum's Ian Chainey, Undulation was born out of an earlier project called Shrouds, but left the vocal slot empty until they got The Executioner on board. The project would mark a stylistic shift for The Executioner themself, but was one they'd always yearned to make.

The stage was set. With a newly razor-throated vocalist to round out the lineup, Undulation got to work... and the opportunities quickly started rolling in. An appearance at Seattle's Northwest Terror Fest got them in front of a big, appreciative crowd just a few months after An Unhealthy Interest in Suffering dropped; they started playing more and more shows around the Pacific Northwest, and now the band is working on its first full-length. You truly love to see it.

Salvo got a chance to chat with The Executioner across three time zones and in between their busy work schedule—as they say, there's no rest for the wicked, and the acerbic vocalist definitely qualifies in the best possible way. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity. Protect your neck (or risk winding up like a certain Assyrian general).

SALVO: You've mentioned your previous musical life as a rapper, and have also never hidden your love of metal—"Metalhead til I'm dead, but tell these white boys to stop setting churches on fiyah." There seems to be a real connection between your past work and what you're doing with Undulation, particularly aesthetically and lyrically. Can you talk a bit about those connections, and how your artistic process has shifted since you began working with Undulation?

THE EXECUTIONER: I guess I've always been considered a horrorcore rapper, and I made it pretty known that I was making music that wasn't necessarily the genre I wanted to make—I just couldn't really scream, and I didn't have that window of opportunity to be in a metal band. But I had a lot that I wanted to express, and I was able to do that in a lot of fun ways. I made a beat out of an Old Nick song at one point, and then we released our demo, we did some tapes on Grime Stone Record, so it was very cool and full circle. I would say that thematically a lot of the writing and Undulation has a lot of similarities to what I was doing with Guayaba for sure.

I feel like I can't help but be myself, as silly as that sounds. I'm really into the weird, the macabre, the occult, mixed with these feelings of pain and isolation and suffering, and I just want to execute them in the ways that I see fit. And I'm finally able to execute it in a way that I would really like to. Rapping was a lot of fun, and I did what I could with the tools I had, you know, so I like that I'm able to transfer that feeling into a different genre.

Hip hop and metal have long been intertwined, for better and sometimes for worse (nu metal revival be damned). As someone who's been part of both communities and created both art forms, how do you see the two interacting with one another in this current era? 

I think that there's a lot to be said about nu metal. I know it's very divisive, but I think that it opened up a lot of doors for people. It did open up doors for me, specifically. There was a girl in eighth grade, when I was in seventh grade, she burned me a copy of Mudvayne's LD 50, and I had really never heard anything like it before. I listened to classical music and whatever was on MTV, because I hadn't really developed my own tastes yet, but I was young and angry—and it was just instantaneous. So, I think that as my tastes developed, I realized, you know, like, when you get into the metal elitist stage, you know, you realize that so many people shit on nu metal and it's like, why?

If you don't like the way it sounds, that's fine. If you remember the fact that it was like, kind of goofy, in popular culture, that's one thing, but I just don't want anything that I listened to to be influenced by the opinion of others. You know, there's some really shitty nu metal but there's also some really amazing nu metal; it's just like any other genre as far as like the bands that shine really shine. Specifically I'm thinking like System of a Down or Snot, and I do love Mudvayne, even though they're second wave nu metal.

But I think that something that speaks to both genres is the energy that can be involved. There's a lot of rap that I think fits on metal bills really well. I'm not the only rapper that makes references to metal. You can tell the difference between rappers who are like, "Yeah, yeah, rock on, I love Nirvana," and people who are like, "No, I fuck with black metal, I fuck with hardcore, I fuck with these artists and I actually go to these shows," and vice versa. I'm not seeing most of these crazy white boys at the rap shows that are happening and, you know, be a lot cooler if I did.

Undulation is your first metal band, but you've been a fan of the genre for a long time. I remember how hard it was to be a teenage girl trying to find my place in metal, and I had some extra layers of privilege to insulate me; you're a few years younger than me and came up on the other side of the country, but I bet you've dealt with plenty of bullshit. How can we make the scene more welcoming for newcomers now? 

I think a big part of it is just the way that people are treated. There's a lot of snobbery when it comes to metal. If I'm honest with you, I do have some gatekeeper tendencies that I'm really trying to work on. But we're living in the era of like, horny metal and girly pop and all of this shit. And I just want to find people who are genuinely interested in delving into the genre, people who are interested in the history of it, or people who even just hear a song and they're like, "What is this?" and you're like, "Oh, this is blackened death metal, let me introduce you to some more bands in the genre, because I would like to tell it to you and not let an algorithm tell it to you."

I think that it's fairly easy to find community, especially with social media at our fingertips; all you really have to do is have a genuine interest, and you will find the right people in the right community.

I'd love to hear about your vocal technique, and how you developed the visceral style that defines your work in Undulation. People who dismiss harsh vocals as "just screaming" truly have no idea of what goes into it.

I have a lot of operatic experience with the use of the diaphragm, so I'm definitely coming from there. When I'm screaming, it feels like I'm doing a bunch of sit ups. And then I'm like, "Oh, cool, my voice doesn't hurt, and my voice is not gone." Part of why it took me so long was because I was so afraid of hurting my voice. I was not doing it correctly, I was straining myself. And it all just kind of clicked one day.

If I'm also being honest—because I've gotten a lot of comparisons to some DSBM [depressive suicidal black metal] vocals, and I would agree—during the start of the pandemic, I would have a lot of moments where I would be curled up in a ball on the floor seething, like physically seething, and even in the back of my mind, I was like, "Damn, this sounds kind of sick."

So a lot of that is just venom and vitriol and hatred and suffering. And I'm able to bottle that and spit it out, and I'm not trying to emulate anyone else's style. People definitely have no idea what goes into it as far as being able to do it and not hurt yourself. You know, there are a lot of artists that end up having to have vocal surgery because of a lack of technique. And that's really one of the things that I was most afraid of.

Honestly, a lot of practicing—or being less afraid to practice—was my friends being metalheads, and just playing around doing fake gutturals and stuff. And one day I was like, "Wait, guys, I think I can do this for real now!" And my friends had been wanting me to try out for their band, and at the time I was like, "Okay, why not? I feel safe enough and comfortable enough around these people to try to scream and it's okay if I sound stupid..." and I was like, "Damn, I sound sick as hell!" So here we are.

Undulation live at Northwest Terror Fest 2024 / Photo by J. Donovan Malley

I get the sense from reading your lyrics that you've got a soft spot for Gothic horror, romantic literature, and overall spooky stuff. What are you reading these days?

You guessed it, thank you for noticing! I absolutely do, because I think that those are ideas that I can express myself the best with as far as this project goes. There's a lot of Guayaba that has been carried over, because I'm obsessed with beauty and death, and I can't stop writing about it. I'm actually doing a little reread of this amazing Gothic trilogy called Gormenghast. It was one of the first true Gothic horror novels that I got into, so I'm getting some nostalgic inspiration and also branching out into a way that is not connected to the algorithm, where I'm finding things on my own, which has been really awesome. I know that a lot of these these novels have been made into TV shows at this point, but a lot of that I'm just not necessarily interested in, I am more interested in delving into the source material.

Undulation is still a fairly new band, but you've gotten a ton of positive attention for your debut EP, and nailed your debut performance at Northwest Terror Fest. What's next for the band?

I would say that we're fairly new still, which is awesome. We did have a bit of a setback trying to find a new guitarist because our old one was a piece of shit evil person, and our new guitarist Brett is just an amazing, incredible person and an amazing guitarist. They're currently on tour right now, and we're just so excited for him to come back so we can really start working more on this album. We've got a couple of songs written. But honestly, we're in our 30s, and we try to make as much time for this as we can. I commute, and we're working very diligently. Our debut is going to be coming out on I, Voidhanger Records, and we're very excited.

Being able to play Terror Fest was so surreal. That was one of our main goals as a band, you know, and then it was like, we opened our eyes, and it was there and we're just like, "Oh shit, what now?" So our our main focus is writing more music, and hopefully the full length will be out—we're shooting for before the end of this year, but if not, you know, sometimes things take time and that's okay.

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