Exclusive: Cloak Frontman Sheds Light on Band’s ‘Haunting, Shadowy’ New LP in First Interview for ‘Above, Below, & Through’
Readers who have spent any significant amount of time on The Bad Penny are well aware that one of our favorite bands is Cloak. The goth-tinged black-metal band from Atlanta topped our list of best 2023 albums with their last record, Black Flame Eternal, which frontman Scott Taysom had previously spoken about extensively with us both before and after its completion. The following year, Taysom gave us an early peek at what Cloak had in store for their follow-up. We also exclusively reported on the band’s departure from Season of Mist, which had put out its previous releases, and signing to Metal Blade.
Last week, we started our new chapter of Cloak coverage by highlighting their new video – and first for their upcoming album – for the song “Nigredo – Initium” (check it out farther down in this post). On Tuesday of last week, Metal Blade announced that Cloak’s fourth album and first for the label will be called Above, Below, & Through and arrive on Feb. 12. Over the weekend, Taysom honored us by speaking with The Bad Penny before any other music outlet about the new record.
What follows is a condensed version of our conversation, in which Taysom opens up about seeing shadowy apparitions in the night, sleep paralysis, his interpretation of Carl Jung and why Cloak’s new album is their most introverted one to date.
Thanks so much for granting The Bad Penny the first interview surrounding your new album, Scott. I’ve only heard the first song – which is killer, of course – but I couldn’t be more amped to hear the whole thing. With the release date a few months away, are you starting to get busy with what the music industry calls your “album cycle”?
We played a festival last night here [in Atlanta] called Mass Destruction [Metal Fest], so we were there all weekend. Did some new songs. It was good.
How many new songs did you play, and what was the reception like?
It was good. We actually did mostly new songs, just for the hell of it. We played three new ones and one old one. We didn’t have a long slot, so we did a shorter set. But yeah, it was really good. [The new songs] seem to have a sort of certain energy live, which I really like. It’s a more haunting album.
Which songs did you debut?
The first two. We opened with “Nigredo – Initium,” then played “Of Shadow & Sleep,” which is also the second song and gonna be the second single too. Then we did “Horrors Profound,” which is a slower one on the record. And then we did “In the Darkness, the Path,” which is on the first [release, Cloak’s self-titled 2016 EP].
Did the fans appreciate you playing new material? I assume your fan base is strongest in Atlanta, which is where you’re from.
I would say they did. It was a festival, so there were actually a good bit of out-of-towners too. It’s always good to be able to not just play to the same Atlanta crowd. We don’t really play Atlanta too much, actually. We actually played here this year a little more than usual. I think that was our third time playing here this year, and that was our last show of the year.
Right, then you have five shows coming up in January, yeah?
I think four. Then we’re booking a record release show in February, so yeah, that will actually be five.
How are new drummer Matt Morris and bassist Rafay Nabeel fitting in? Is it pretty seamless with performing with them onstage so far? Was the festival the first time you played live with them?
No, we did a Profanatica tour with this lineup. [Houston metal fest] Hell’s Heroes was the first show for Rafay. But yeah, it’s been seamless. I mean, Matt’s been touring with the band since 2019, so he’s not really new. He just joined as an official member, and he did the album with us, so it was really seamless recording with him for the first time as well. And Rafay’s been an easy fit. I’ve known him since high school.
Do you consider this to be a new chapter in Cloak’s career, or even almost like you’re a new band? Or do you feel like the identity and the personality of the band is pretty much still intact?
A bit of both. It’s definitely a new chapter. I feel like every record is an evolution [of Cloak]. You could compare these last two records pretty easily, but it would be hard to compare this new one to the first one [2017’s To Venomous Depths], if that makes sense. So, in a way, it’s sort of like a new band, especially since we’ve been through a few lineup changes.
It definitely feels like a rebirth. I remember Black Flame felt like that too, but this one feels even way more like a rebirth. There’s such a collaborative, or cohesive, package that’s come out with this one, as far as the team we’ve gotten behind it. Obviously, we switched labels to Metal Blade. But we also found Brian Sheehan, who was our photographer on the record. His team did the new videos for us, and they’re very, just distinct to their style of imagery, and it’s exactly what we wanted for the record.
This is a very shadowy record, whereas Black Flame was a very fiery record. Even the stage setup that we’re going to [use all] pinpoints to that kind of shadow side, which is a big theme on the record. But I like the cohesiveness and the totality of everything when we come forth with a new album. Obviously we worked with [artist] Jordan [Rakei] again for the cover. But [this time], it’s not an illustrative cover. It’s a painting. So that even gives [the new album] a different vibe.
And then there are the little things: We got a guy to do new custom typography for the record, and he redid [our] symbol. It’s on the back of the record, it’ll be on T-shirts and every little thing like that. So it’s not just a rebirth but also a rebranding in a way.
You said in the press release for the new album that it “amplifies” the strengths of Black Flame Eternal, which I’ll remind you was my favorite record of 2023. I went back to a previous interview that we did, and you had talked about that record being faster and harder – but it sounds like ratcheting up the speed and weight wasn’t necessarily the objective this time around. Is that correct?
I don’t know, because this one is even faster … like, there’s faster blast beats … we’ve never been a band that just blasts the whole time. I don’t think that stands out very well, and we’ve always liked dynamics. This one is faster and harder than Black Flame Eternal, honestly. My vocals are much more projected and dynamic, and I hit higher highs and lower lows, but the music also hits higher highs and lower lows.
There’s always going to be those slower parts, but the parts that are fast are the fastest beats per minute we’ve ever recorded. Like, the song “Levitation,” we’re up to doing blast [beats] at like 200 bpm. We’ve never cared about all that nerdy-type shit, but that’s an example of where we’re at. We’re never going to be Marduk-fast or anything like that, but I think in another way [our sound is] amplified. The conceptual elements. The lush production. This [record features] by far our most natural, lush and big production. The drums sound huge, and it definitely [features] our biggest drum production. It’s a very reverb-ey record.
Yeah, from what I’ve gathered so far, it seems that production was the top priority for this record.
Yeah, and it was a journey to find who we wanted to use. We wanted to use Arthur Rizk. He worked with Power Trip in the past, I think he’s worked with King Diamond too. But it was hard to get him. We would’ve had to travel, which would’ve been logistically [difficult]. We then looked at a few other people, but we stuck with a guy in town [Alex Parra] who – to be honest – we underestimated. But when we started working with him and had a few conversations, we instantly [realized it] was the right move. Plus we could take our time, [because his studio is] very close. It’s only, like, a 20-minute drive for me every day. I’m usually the one that’s got to be at the studio every day.
The drum sessions went very well. [Parra] brought in a drum engineer to do the drums – John Douglass – and Matt killed it, and John killed it, so it was probably our easiest recording process [yet]. We got into some issues with mixing; we were going to have another guy mix it, and that didn’t work out, so Alex just took everything on – he mixed it as well, which we should have just done from the start. I think we wanted to do what we did on the last record, but we tried to do it, and it just didn’t work. Alex’s mixes were better. That was the only small step back.
So, to what extent did you collaborate with the producer, or did he pretty much follow your instruction?
A bit of both. It’s produced by Alex and Cloak, technically. I do demos before we go in; the way I write songs is essentially through demos. Then we perfect them as a band, and I update the demos as we go, so the bells and whistles are already in there, in my demos. We then re-create the demos, so that’s why, in a way, I’m producing a lot of it myself. But when it comes to amp sounds and tones and all that, it’s all Alex. Obviously, we have the final say, but he gives options, and we had a huge amount of amps in the studio – like, 10 to choose from. So it was really cool. We also talked to him about how we wanted a more lush overall sound, more atmospheric in a way, more reverb-y on the drums, but big and natural. It’s always something we aim for, and I think we finally got it. We’ve always struggled with the drum sound, so it was good to get it.
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“I’ve experienced shadow figures floating toward me, [that cause me to wake] up screaming, and I’ve experienced a guy to the side of my bed that was in the shape of a man. He had this glowing hue around him. All I can remember is waking up and swinging. I wasn’t sure if I actually swung at him, or if that was part of my dream.“
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Given the fact that you wanted the production to be so different this time around, was that – in your mind, at least – a way of correcting things that you didn’t like about previous Cloak records, or was it more a matter of just wanting to explore and grow as a band and have a record that sounded different than previous Cloak records?
I think the latter, but what you said about correcting … I think every record is going to be … maybe not correcting, but just improving on where you think you could have done better on the last one. Because [the previous LP is] like a blueprint, and then you take that and see what works for the new songs. These new songs have a lush imagery and atmosphere to them. You’re never 100 percent happy. I’m not, at least.
Segueing into the content of the record, which I obviously don’t know much about yet, as I haven’t heard all the songs, it seems like the production has a relationship to the subject matter of the lyrics. You’ve alluded a couple of times to a different conceptual approach to the material, and I’m wondering if you can expand on your mention of “liminality and duality.”
It’s a record [that deals with the] spaces in-between. I experienced a lot of nightmare apparitions within the past few years, and I put that into the lyrics, because I think that’s a rift in between two realms when you see those things. So I expand on the sinister nature of that. But there’s also songs that we’ve covered in the past lyrically about the liminal places between life and death, and the send-off before you enter that other side. There’s two songs that link that theme: “Into Death’s Light” and the title track. Those songs are more about that liminality phase between life and death, or being at the end of your life and looking back and realizing what you could have done, or realizing if you did everything that you wanted to.
Other songs are linked thematically too. “Nigredo – Initium,” “Levitation,” “Of Shadow & Sleep” and “The Mare” – which is an interlude – are all linked conceptually, and those [deal] more [with] the shadow realm, the shadow self, being cursed to that shadow realm. “The Arcane Beckoning” and “Horrors Profound” kind of stand on their own, but I would say “Horrors Profound” has a theme of [being[ in between beast and man – which is also a liminal theme. That’s why the title Above, Below, & Through’ is so perfect, because it represents something all-encompassing.
Did you start having these dreams recently? Do you think they were stress-related?
I’m not really a stressed-out guy. I think something might have opened along the way through what we’ve delved into with Cloak, because this never happened before. I really started going deeper into this band and the conceptual elements of it.
It’s just opening up pathways in the mind, and things that can infect that. It’s only been within the last five years or so, but I’ve experienced shadow figures floating toward me, [that cause me to wake] up screaming, and I’ve experienced a guy to the side of my bed that was in the shape of a man. He had this glowing hue around him. All I can remember is waking up and swinging. I wasn’t sure if I actually swung at him or if that was part of my dream. It’s a very eerie thing. Those were the two heaviest ones. Other than that, I’ve seen lots of floating, smoky figures all the time. [In those situations, compared to the others,] you wake up and it’s a little less jarring of a situation, and you just kind of deal with it and go back to sleep. I never felt threatened, except for those two [incidents].
And those incidents both happened in the last five years, you said?
Yeah. I’m a back sleeper too, and I know that has a lot to do with it. But to me, it’s a question of why do we see the same things [in those situations?] Like, when you talk about people’s sleep paralysis, it’s always the same type of shadow figures [that come up in conversation]. To me, that’s extremely interesting. I think it could be something related to the demonic realm. I mean, science can only explain so much. It could maybe explain how, or maybe why, but not really what or why we do see the same things. That’s fascinating.
In “Nigredo – Initium,” you have a lyric that says, “In tongues they speak, in dreams we die.” Is that a comment on the religious right destroying the future?
I’d say it’s more literal, about how we die little deaths in our dreams. There aren’t many allusions to Christianity or other major religions on this album. It deals more with the shadow realm and the shadow self. A lot of people point out Carl Jung’s philosophy on how the darkest point of the alchemical process before you are born is the dark night of the soul. That’s a good way to look at it. But I actually wrote that song a little more [the angle that] Nigredo [Latin for “the blackening” or “the blackness”] is almost a presence that’s haunting you. It’s not so literal about the dark night of the soul.
I tried to develop my own take on it. Initially, I was going to do a whole conceptual record on Nigredo, but I decided to have it more based just within that song. And then “Initium” is Latin for “the beginning,” which I thought was a good way to start the album.
Do you consider Above, Below, & Through to be an existential album?
Yeah. I think all of our albums are. A lot of our albums have dealt with different ways of looking at spirituality. But this one is less triumphant. If I’m being honest, Black Flame was very powerful, very youthful, very triumphant, very kind of take-life-by-the-balls. But this one is much more …
… Introverted?
Yeah, definitely. That’s a good way to put it. I would say Black Flame is much more extroverted. And this one’s extremely introspective. Yeah.
I think I caught four of your shows backing Black Flame Eternal, and they were so social and engaging.
Yeah, much more in your face. And this one, even just playing the new songs last night, felt a bit more haunting. It was still a bit aggressive, but we were a little more in our own realm.
Well, it gives your fans something more to chew on.
Yeah.
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“When you talk about people’s sleep paralysis, it’s always the same type of shadow figures [that come up in conversation]. To me, that’s extremely interesting. I think it could be something related to the demonic realm.”
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I also saw you mention that “it’s a start of a new dark age.” Is that applicable to the band or to the world?
I intended it to describe the album, but we are living in a dark age of the world as well. Cloak has its own world. I’m really into world building. Each record is a world of its own. But yeah, the dark age of the [real] world is a whole other conversation.
Yeah, let’s not go there today. The last question I want to ask you is if you can expand on another lyric from “Nigredo,” which is: “Become all that you hate. Thus love all that you are.” It’s probably shitty or unfair for me as an interviewer to ask you to expand on that, because I respect your art and also respect the fact that people can interpret lyrics in different ways. But to me, it speaks to learning to accept your defects and accept who you are and the world for what it is.
Yeah, absolutely. That’s one of my favorite lyrics in there, because I think you can take it in so many ways. It was one of those lyrics that just kind of popped into my head one day. I wrote it down, and I was like, “OK, I need to use this in one of our songs.” And it fit.
Right before right before that line, it says, “It spoke and it spoke.” Is that referring to the Nigredo entity, saying that to you?
Yeah. Basically, accept what you are. Accept that you are a person that you hate, essentially. It’s a fairly dark line. But it’s beautiful, because it’s who you are – and you’re a person who loves, too.
Your lyrics in that song really struck me. I relish how they’re so paradoxical and can’t wait to hear the rest of what you say throughout the album.
It’s paradoxical for sure. I’m glad you pointed that lyric out and recognized it. I think it’s a pretty important line of the song.
Maybe it sets the table for the rest of the album?
Yeah, I’d say so. At least the ending of that song and into the next one, for sure.
Cool, Scott. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to catch up with me about your latest achievement.
Yeah. Your questions were great. I appreciate the conversation. It’s my first interview for the album so far. So it was nice to be able to kind of expand on things.
What’s next year looking like for you?
The touring world seems kind of sleepy next year. So we don’t have much on the horizon. We’re aiming to do as much as we can, but we haven’t gotten any offers yet. We’re looking around now. Everything is just so expensive. European bands can’t come here because the visas are all fucked up. And it’s been weird for us to try to get over there. They’re trying to increase their rates on what booking agents take. It’s insane.
Well, I love what I’ve heard so far from the new record and am really grateful you spoke with me first about it.
Yeah, man. I’m looking forward to having you hear the rest. The next single will be out in January. We’re waiting till after the holidays, essentially, letting [“Nigredo – Initium”] sink in for a while. And then we’ll be off to the races.
For more on Cloak and to pre-order Above, Below, & Through, go to their Bandcamp page.
Above, Below, & Through track list:
1. Nigredo – Initium
2. Of Shadow & Sleep
3. Into Death’s Light
4. Horrors Profound
5. Levitation
6. The Arcane Beckoning
7. The Mare
8. Above, Below, & Through
Upcoming Cloak concerts:
• 1.13: Charlotte, NC @ The Milestone Club
• 1.14: Richmond, VA @ Heart of Wither Festival
• 1.15: Baltimore @ Metro Baltimore
• 1.16: Raleigh, NC @ Chapel of Bones
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