Darkly Triumphant With SAM MOORADIAN From FALLUJAH

Interview by Kris Peters
Formed in early 2007 by high school friends Alex Hofmann, Scott
Carstairs, Tommy Logan, Dan Wissinger, and Suliman Arghandiwal, US
technical death metal outfit Fallujah is a vastly different beast
in 2025. Guitarist Scott Carstairs is the only original member
remaining, but over the years, he has quietly continued his search
for the ultimate line-up, which may well have finally arrived for
Fallujah's upcoming sixth album, Xenotaph.
A sci-fi conceptual offering influenced by Frank Herbert’s Children
of Dune novel, as well as other Dune stories and theatricals,
Xenotaph also welcomes new members guitarist Sam Mooradian (INHALE
EXISTENCE, SAM MOORADIAN) and drummer Kevin Alexander (DISEMBODIED
TYRANT, BROUGHT BY PAIN) who join Carstairs and vocalist Kyle
Schaefer on a sonic journey into oblivion as only Fallujah can
navigate.
HEAVY spoke with Mooradian earlier this week to dive deeper into
Xenotaph.
"It's super dense with riffs and hooks and melodies and guitar
solos," he offered when asked about the album. "We couldn't be
prouder of it, and I cannot wait for everybody to hear it."
We ask him to describe Xenotaph musically and what the band was
going for this time around.
"We wanted to pay homage to all these albums that have eight songs
on them, like these eight-track death metal records that we all
love so much in the band," he explained. "So one record that comes
to mind right off the bat is Epitaph from Necrophagist - and
Akeldama from The Faceless is another. Man, those records just have
a certain kind of vibe to them. They're fast, and there's no time
to breathe. They come in, and they say what they need to say, and
then they're out of there. I think we wanted to do our version of
that, and we definitely wanted eight songs on this record, so
that's what we did. And we also wanted it to feel dense like those
other records that we loved. So there's a lot of riffs and a lot of
twists and changes. It's just a very dense and diverse record that
we're very happy with. We really enjoy that kind of music and stuff
that keeps you interested and really honed in."
In the full interview, Sam discusses the singles released so far
and how they represent the album, the slightly new direction and
how he thinks fans will respond, the creative process for himself
and Kevin as the new members and how easy the transition was for
them, having a number of writers in the band and the process of
utilizing them all effectively, the science fiction concept and
what it centres around, playing the songs live and slotting them
into a set list and more.


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