Things are often not as they seem with long-running extreme grinders Agoraphobic Nosebleed. For example, their last album was barely grind. Their new EP is southern rock/sludge/doom. And when we catch up with vocalist Kat Katz, she's not exactly doing usual grindcore stuff.

“Things are going well,” she says. “Today, I’m working on applications for neuroscience research internships and jobs.”

Yup, not what we'd expect. But, like I say, what can anyone really expect from this band anymore? This is a band who once put out a 100-song 3” mini-CD, then flirted with crossover sounds on their last album, Agorapocalypse. Now, we have Arc, the first in a series of EPs exploring different genres, each EP showcasing one member's musical influences and tastes.

“Scott [Hull, guitars/drum programming] came up with idea,” says Katz. “I think writing a series of EPs that explores different music styles was a fun way for him to challenge himself.”

So for the first in the series, the band looked to Katz for the musical style to explore. And while early reports indicated sludge and doom, I'm hearing a lot of southern metal and stoner rock on Arc's three lengthy tunes along with, yes, some extreme doom and sludge sounds.

“Arc expresses my musical taste,” explains Katz. “Doom has been my favourite metal genre for the
last 10 years or so. This EP makes a lot of sense to those who know my previous band, Salome, which played doom/stoner rock. Scott and I exchanged our favorite sludge songs to get inspired for the writing process.”

And although it seems like Agoraphobic exploring this sound (and doing a killer job of it) was Katz' doing, turns out that Hull had already been toying around with the genres at hand before the idea for the EP came to fruition.

“Scott actually wrote Arc’s [12-minute closer] 'Gnaw' years before he introduced the EP series idea,” says Katz. “However, composing an entire doom/stoner rock EP was definitely a departure
from his norm. I think he enjoyed the change.”

Once recovered from the shock that the famous Agoraphobic drum machine could even play at such slow tempos (“It was indeed an astounding discovery,” says Katz), fans can expect more from the band in the form of more EPs in this series and a full-length to follow up Agorapocalypse, which came out back in 2009.

“We plan to work on a full-length later this year,” says Katz, “and then continue at a causal pace with the EPs.”

And the other exciting news in the band's world is that they've slowly been a bit more active on the live front. “Active,” of course, is a relative term, considering this is a band who played their first kinda-show nine years after forming and their first full set a solid 21 years after forming.

“We’re excited to be playing Netherlands Deathfest in February and the Southwest Terror Festival and California Deathfest in October,” says Katz. “There’s talk of additional shows and fests, but nothing is confirmed yet.”