Respecting The Horrors Of War With DIETMAR KUMARBERG From 1914

While the idea of conceptual records and music is nothing new, more
often than not, these concepts are drawn from ideas, visions, or
the minds of people who are passionate about the very thing they
are writing about. While these musical storylines are more often
than not an entertaining escape from the mundane existence of
everyday life, they are merely a figment of another person's
imagination and can be construed as such.
But when it comes to conceptual stories surrounding war and the
atrocities associated with it, there are few bands who manage the
task well. Subjects that have basis in reality and the suffering of
others must have an authentic flavour to them in order to be
respectful to those who have lived it and their families, with
bands like Sabaton standing out for their continued excellence in
this field.
But there is also another band who delves into the horrors of war
with unnerving detail, except this time the band in question
themselves live and/or were raised in a war zone. A real-life
battle zone where life and death are a daily balancing act. As
such, their music is not only based on fact, it is written in
conflict.
That band is 1914, formed in Lviv, Ukraine, in 2014. From the
outset, 1914 have written and sung about war - primarily WW1 - but
the daily threat of war that lives on their doorstep enables the
band to write with an eerie authenticity unlike most others. 1914's
upcoming fourth album, Viribus Unitis, adheres to the same
conceptual storyline as each of the other albums, except this time
the story arc follows the personal accounts of a Ukrainian soldier
in the K.u.K. army, following real events and tracing a timeline
from 1914 to 1919. The album paints a grim journey through the
war’s rise, climax, and hollow aftermath, combining a brutal
mixture of blackened death metal, slow-burning doom, and ambient
war soundscapes.
HEAVY spoke with vocalist 2nd Division, 147th Infantry Regiment,
Senior Lieutenant Dietmar Kumarberg (Dmytro Ternushchak) to find
out more.
"I don't know how I must feel about it," he laughed, speaking with
a thick Ukrainian accent. "At least I'm still alive - because I'm
from Ukraine - so it's not bad at all in our circumstances. At
least we did this, and we finished this album, and we will release
it on Napalm Records. I feel some… let's call it happiness
(laughs), because I'm allowed to do this, and it's not bad at
all."
We ask him to dive into the album deeper musically.
"With this album - like all of ours - we started based on real
historical events, with a lot of research," he replied. "It's a big
concept. But with this album, we started in a completely different
way. We based the whole album on the life of one soldier. This is a
soldier from the Western part of Ukraine - my home town. This is
the view from one soldier when he faced war at the very beginning
of the First World War, and the Russians invaded my hometown, and
his regiment must retreat, and he faces the huge battles."
In the full interview, Dietmar tells us more about the conceptual
journey of the soldier, including his lonely end. He tells us the
story behind the title - which is Latin for With United Forces and
how it ties in with Viribus Unitus, including personal tales of
battle he has endured living in Ukraine.
Dietmar goes further into the concept and explains how 1914 manage
to create a sonic landscape and atmospherics that take the listener
inside the war zone and the importance of research and factual
information in their music. He talks of the personal toll writing
about such horrific encounters leaves on him after an album cycle
and runs us through what it is like living as a musician in Ukraine
throughout the war and devastation, plus much more.


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