DALISAY (Philippines) has launched their debut full-length, “Ang Trahedya ng Dalisay at Ketungin” on September 15, 2021. This is sort of an impressive album, containing 7 tracks of old-school Death/Thrash aggression. The CD version was released by Surrogate Records (Ukraine) while the cassette edition was available through Screaming Skull Records (Norway).
Questions by The Unblessed
Answered by Jorel Torres
Replied on May 16, 2023, 1:30 AM
Hail! Please give a little introduction about DALISAY - brief history, band members, etc.
We are an Old School Death/Thrash from the Philippines that spews out subjects relating to socio-political issues. Founded in Cavite around 2006 by me (Jorel Torres), Gio Herrera, Jeffrey Batoctoy, and Jet Bartolome. Now, I’m the only remaining founding member.
The band suffered from a lot of line up changes, even after the release of the debut album. Currently, the line up consists of me on guitars and vocals, Mark Saguibo on bass, Khristian Virtudazo on guitars, and Toots Book on drums.
Explain more about your recent album “Ang Trahedya ng Dalisay at Ketungin”. The musics are extremely kills and the band is more comfortable with lyrics in the native language. Please further comments.
Our debut album, “Ang Trahedya ng Dalisay at Ketungin” is a 7-track concept album. All songs are sung in our native tongue, and tied together by character narratives, touching on familiar social issues in our country. It can also be seen as a cautionary tale of how poverty, famine, desperation, and dark past can lead someone into a downward spiral path to corruption.
Since all songs are reflections of our country’s social ills, in my opinion, there is none more potent way of delivering it other than using the local tongue, in terms of sincerity, authenticity, and impact. I think that applies to all countries and their respective local tongues.
What hugely influenced you all during the making of the album, especially in terms of songwriting, recordings and the entire sound preferences?
Lyrically, the inspiration behind is what I see not only on the news, but what I personally see on the streets, and on the neighborhood.
Music-wise, we wanted to have same vibe and grit as those bands that we look up to like Death, Obituary, Slayer, Sepultura, etc. but without being just a watered-down clone of said bands.
Everything was done DIY. We recorded and mixed almost all songs except “Sa Bunganga ng Pagkabaliw” on our own. Same applies to the album cover, which I painted on my own too. I wanted to give the album a highly striking image to represent visually the message it conveys, most especially to the local audience. Given that Philippines is a catholic country, the image of the Madonna and Child is a very familiar and sacred image to almost everyone in the country, and to which the album cover was inspired. I thought it was perfect to picture the leprous Lazaro in the same composition as both the Mother and the Child. Lazaro, who was left alone by her mother at a young age and acted out as the mother to himself on his path to desperation, corruption, and insanity.
Do you dislike and even completely reject modern Death/Thrash Metal?
No. Let’s just say we prefer the grittier and way more sinister appeal of old death/thrash sound.
What about the responses you received for the album? How do you see the cooperation from the labels towards Dalisay?
We are very happy with the how it was received by extreme music fans, it inspires us to do more. Of course, we are also very grateful to Screaming Skull Records, Surrogate Rec., and Harrowing Industries in helping us release this debut to a wider audience, as well as to the zines and critics who wrote about and supported our debut, that includes you, RAISE THE DEAD! Cheers! If only we could ask more, we hope to have it release in vinyl too! Haha.
Does Dalisay play gigs and do tours? Tell us about it.
When we released the debut, our drummer at that time is based on USA, so gig was not possible. Though recently, since Jux had to leave, our new drummer, Toots, as well as our new axeman, Khristian, are both local based so we plan to return to playing in gigs soon.
A few hints about your next recordings/releases and some last words from Dalisay?
The follow up album is already on the works! It’s more subject-specific and fact-based. I had consumed documentaries and history books regarding the topics on this album. Haha. As much as I wanted it to be relentless in delivering my interpretation of the truth, I wanted to be more cautious on the veracity of the messages that we will be delivering to the audience. Though we sounded evil to your ears, we aim to do good for the society and not make things worse than they already are.
Soundwise, it’s faster, more aggressive, and melodies are more infectious than what was served on our debut. I promise you that!