Stoke-On-Trent is home to one of the UK's brightest new hopes Amenti. With their new album "Under The Dying Sun" in hand and a host of touring behind them we find the boys back in the studio busying themselves with album number two. Metal Chaos were on hand to find out what 2008 has in store.

Amenti pronounced Ah-Men-Tie is the resting place of the dead in ancient Egyptian mythology. Our artwork also contains heavy hints of Egyptian mythological influence however musically this is not the case. We are heavily influenced by Thrash Metal but also bring in outside influences from British Heavy Metal such as NBWOHM etc. We do not primarily consider ourselves a Thrash Metal band however this is what we have been dubbed as. If we had to describe Amenti's sound we would agree on 'Epic, Dark Themed Apocalyptic Thrash'. Metal Hammer dubbed us 'Thrash Metal with Imagination'. We are based in the Midlands, in Stoke-on-Trent. 3/4 of the band are from South England.

Yes in 2007 we released our first record "Under The Dying Sun". We are an unsigned band however we have had the album reviewed by all the major media outlets and have the record on shelves in HMV and the like right across the UK. The response from the metal community has also been very good.

It was a group process. Initially Ash the guitarist and founding member of the band would bring riffs in and we'd just jam out and improvise. Sometimes good riffs would come out and sometimes not. Sometimes we'd come into the studio with no riffs and leave with a whole new song. I think a few songs such as 'Durruti' and 'Shift The Sands' were written completely start to finish by Ash. 'Mother Terra' was 2 songs, 1 written by Ash and the other by Shaun. We combined the 2 songs to make 'Mother Terra'. We felt they worked very well together as the first half is a slow doom piece and the second half is a uplifting epic piece with more of those classic British Heavy Metal roots shining through in the leads.

What influences do you all bring to the band, as the album does show a variety of styles?

I find that question kind of difficult to answer because when we wrote the album is was very natural. Nothing was really planned like 'we will write the record to contain this' or a specific number of tracks or whatever...We just kind of sat down together and began composing. We said we wanted the album to be apocalyptic, 'Under The Dying Sun' basically a theme of the world coming to an end. With that in mind I think it helped shape some of the tracks into the general theme we was after. That was certainly a 'time and place' album, I mean we would never write it again. That is not our 'style' and especially for future albums when we focus on different themes the whole style of composition will change.

The album was originally scheduled to be released via Hangmans Joke Records but due to the tragic and untimely death of the labels founder at his own hands the album was delayed. How did the band personally deal with this shocking turn of events?

It was a very tragic time for us. We had completed the album and it was ready for press. It was totally out of the blue. Hangmans Joke was not the biggest label going, but for us at that time it was a step up from nothing. We sent our condolences and began thinking of a plan B, there was no point dwelling on it.

Forced then to self finance the release of the album, again how much strain did this put on the band and how as it been being your own label? Any plans to search out a more permanent label?

After the death of Hangmans Joke director we began to look for alternatives to getting the album out. After a lot of research and meetings we decided that searching for another label would take too long. We decided to self finance the pressing of the album, self finance the promotion of the album and build our own team much like a record label would. We found an awesome digital artist who took care of all of the album inlay. We found Code 7 Music as our main UK distributor who would get the CD into all the shops and we used an awesome promotional company who got the album into all the main magazines for reviews. Our manager/booking agent hooked us up with a bunch of tours which would be pre-release promotional tours for the album. I think when we reflect on it we prefer having gone down this road... I  mean we are in control here, we own our music and have not signed it over to

Mid to late 2007 saw Amenti toured in support of the album quite extensively, playing with the likes of Onslaught, Cradle Of Filth and My Dying Bride. What sort of lessons have you learned from sharing a stage with such metal stalwarts?

Yes indeed we toured with Destruction and Onslaught. We also played Hard Rock Hell Festival at Butlins Resort in South West England with Twisted Sister, Saxon, Cradle of Filth, My Dying Bride, Turisas, Sabbat, Fintroll and loads more killer bands. We managed to blag our way onto opening main stage for Cradle of Filth. We've learned that showing a bit of respect (and a lot of begging) goes a long way.

The band also got to play The Flaming Arts Festival, the first ever touring festival. Sounds like a strange concept but how was the tour? I believe this was the bands first tour?

'The Flaming Arts Festival' was the first ever touring metal festival to go through Russia. The lineup was Vader (Poland), Rotting Christ (Greece), Krisiun (Brazil), Incantation (USA), Amenti and Riul Doamnei (Italy). A pretty international lineup. I mean all those guys are Death Metal and Riul Doamnei were Black Metal by comparison we were the lightest band on the bill!...So we were a little worried about going down like a sack of shit in front of all these crazy Russian Death Metallers. But we just went out and gave it our best and got great crowd reactions every night! We have some insane stories from that tour but I’m sure they’ll surface in time. Anyway we made a lot of new friends and fans on that tour.

Has work begun on the follow up to “Under The Dying Sun”, any titles / themes you can share with us?

We have begun work on the second album. We have 8 new tracks written already (over 40 minutes worth of material). However our target is not yet reached and we have so much material flowing at the moment I would of thought the next album would be at least 12 tracks and around 60 minutes long. This time there is no specific composition based theme like on Under The Dying Sun. I can tell you that the material this time is very, very diverse as opposed to UTDS. This time we've completely opened up to new ideas and we are still experimenting with things. It's more Thrash, More Death, More acoustic, More Epic...More everything.

After Shaun left us in early 2008 we began a nationwide search for a new guitarist. We had many applicants and originally when Gareth (Who is from the South) contacted the band he was turned down on the basis that we had already found the new guitarist. However due to complications he decided that he could not give the band his full commitment. So we bought Gareth in for an audition. Gareth and Nick (drums), who is also from South West England, hit it off instantly. These guys already knew each other as Nick and Gareth's previous bands played some shows together. We all feel like Gareth has been in the band for years. We wrote a song with him within the first week and I think it will be a song that will really stand out on the new album as a possible favorite.

I asked this of Evile and I’m curious to know your take, Thrash metal is once again on the rise, why? What do you think has turned a new generation onto bands such as Testament, Exodus, Forbidden and Death Angel to name but four?

Yeah I mean the media has been on about a Thrash Revival for years now. We've always been heavily into our Thrash. The UK Thrash scene has really exploded with loads of excellent bands being picked up by bigger labels. I'm sure there are a bunch of small specific events that happened that have caused the Thrash Scene to explode. I personally think Metal came to the end of an era and that the old school revival is now upon us. Thrash is one thing that was born as a sub genre to other genres (Punk and Metal) and has really grabbed the balls of everyone and has found it's way as being a main influence for most metal bands the world over. That being said we don’t really consider ourselves a huge part of the sudden revival. Although we have influences from old school thrash there’s a lot more going on in the Amenti sound. Something I’m sure you will hear on the next album.

Yes thanks Metal Chaos for the interview and to our fans; we are going to be doing a lot of touring this year to be sure to come out and party with us!