ANA KEFR vocalist Rhiis D. Lopez recently spoke with BW&BK; scribe Carl Begai about the band's debut album, Volume 1, and their plans for the future. An excerpt from the story is available below, with Lopez commenting on comparisons made between the band and acts like DIMMU BORGIR and VOIVOD:

“Dimmu Borgir and Voivod happen to be two great bands, so comparisons like that are a big compliment,” says Lopez. “Ana Kefr’s sound is actually the product of both myself and Kyle (Coughran / rhythm guitars). Kyle and I both come from diverse musical backgrounds, we’ve grown up listening to artists from every genre you can imagine. As far as any ‘off-the-wall strangeness’, there’s not really a point to writing music, being in a band, performing or anything else if you’re just going to rip off someone else. I understand being inspired by other artists, but sounding like another act is kind of like being in a touring karaoke band – it doesn’t feel artistically honest. I’d rather have a flawed original work than a perfected forgery. Sitting down to the writing table, so to speak, all I know is that we write what we want to hear. We’ve never started out saying 'Let’s write a song that sounds like so-and-so could write it;' in fact we throw ideas away if they sound like they belong in someone else’s musical portfolio.”

Along with sharpening Ana Kefr’s live show the focus now is on album #2, with Lopez deep in writing mode. Fans who think they know what to expect when the album finally surfaces… think again.

“We’re approaching our next album differently than we did with Volume 1, now we can take the time and invest a lot of thought, consideration and planning into it so that it is exactly what we want it to be. With Volume 1, I wrote the lyrics as the music was completed. With our next release I’m a lot more involved musically and am focusing purely on the music before I set words to any of it. The lyrics will be the final piece of the puzzle for the next album, but I’ve already been polishing out ideas and concepts for quite a while now.”
“Musically, the next album is a lot heavier, darker, scarier sounding, technical, and a whole lot weirder. It’s actually a lot different from Volume 1; it’s as if we found what we were looking for in music and it just happens to be a lot more intense than any of the previous material. I couldn’t even compare the newer music being written to anything anyone has heard already because it’s honestly unexplainable. It still sounds like Ana Kefr, but it sounds like Ana Kefr got a lot angrier, way more epic, significantly darker, started bringing in some new artistic dynamics, and with things overall more mature musically. I think it’ll definitely surprise people, but I’m confident that it’s going to be our best work yet. As far as the focus, I’m keeping quiet about this until we get closer to having it complete, mostly because I change my mind so much that if I put anything out there and suddenly recant then I’ll feel like an idiot.”

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(Photo by Linda Gray)