Interview: Ov Lustra

In June Ov Lustra released their debut album under the name of Ov Lustra, titled Tempestas. Recently, DutchMetalManiac’s Tim van Velthuysen interviewed them.

Hey, congratulations with your debut album, Tempestas. It’s really nice! How are the reactions you got on it so far?

Hello, and thank you! So far the feedback has been nothing but positive and constructive and that’s all we can ask for at such an early stage as a band!

Tempestas is your debut album as Ov Lustra, however earlier Ov Lustra was called Sun Speaker and with Sun Speaker you did release one album, called Ov Lustra. Can you elaborate on this name-change?

Unfortunately, a few months ago we had been issued a Cease and Desist letter by an attorney on the behalf of another party who had trademarked the original name. Ov Lustra in and of itself is a physical place within our big concept story, and thus we decided to use that as our new name to keep things somewhat familiar with our fans.

On Tempestas you have two guest musicians, Fleshgod Apocalypse’s Francesco Ferrini and Flub’s Michael Alvarez. How did these collaborations come to pass?

Well, we’re all big fans of Fleshgod Apocalypse. We reached out to Francesco and inquired about working on a few songs with us, and to our surprise he was up for it!

As for Mr. Alvarez, he’s a great friend of ours since before Sun Speaker/Ov Lustra came to life. It was a no-brainer for us to get him on a song.

Tempestas contains four new tracks, four reissue tracks and four orchestral versions of the new tracks. Why did you choose to do add those reissue and orchestral tracks?

Well, initially we were going to release the 4 new tracks as a short EP last November. But, after teaming up with Black Lion around the same time frame, the release date got pushed back so we decided to try to add a few extra tracks, which led to the reissues. As for the orchestral tracks, we personally love how Fleshgod Apocalypse includes them with their own albums, and we figured Francesco’s work with us was definitely worth letting people appreciate on its own.

You’ve released Tempestas on Black Lion Records. What makes Black Lion Records the best label for Ov Lustra at this moment?

We got connected with Black Lion on a whim by Rebel Pyro Management. We were working on the latest release at the time and it just seemed to make sense to us.

Can you tell something about the story behind the four new tracks?

The new tracks follow where our first album left off, with our main character standing upon a mountain with cliffs that led to jagged rocks and crashing waves below. These songs tell of a ritual our character must perform in order to escape the purgatory realm of Ov Lustra.

Tempestas‘ artwork was made by Mark Erskine. What made him the perfect person for this job?

We had a specific landscape in mind for the location within our story and when we came across Mark’s work, he hit the nail on the head with what we had envisioned.

Can we expect some Ov Lustra shows in the near future? Maybe coming to The Netherlands?

That’s up in the air, at the moment. We’d love to get ourselves out there, but unfortunately we haven’t ever had a dedicated live drummer, only a studio drummer. If that ever changes though, we’d love to make our way out to The Netherlands!

Thanks for your answers! Is there anything you want to say to our readers?

Thank you for any and all support for us! Fans new and old, you all are the best and truly warm our frostbitten hearts!

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