Four long years since their last release, Jucifer are back with their bombastic new album "If Thine Enemy Hunger". With a new album, record deal and US tour underway, we spoke to leading lady Amber Valentine about this new dawn in the life of Jucifer.

September saw the release of your new album, "If Thine Enemy Hungers". How do you best describe the record for those yet to experience Jucifer?

I don't feel I can ever really do it justice unless I'm given time to be a writer and edit myself ahead of time [laughs]. I suppose by now I should have a sound bite for Jucifer, but the problem is we do so many different things that it is a little hard for me to come up with one. I would mostly say for this album, for people who are familiar with the band, the reaction I've had so far is that they are totally satisfied and overjoyed with it in terms of what they were expecting. For new people who are going to listen to it, you have to listen to the whole thing before you know if you will like it. On the record we're not one of those bands that do the same thing from track 1 to 12.

The writing on the album appears intensely personal and impassioned. How did you approach the writing of the album in such a manner?

Obviously we sometimes draw on something that has happened to one of us personally, but also both of us are very empathetic by nature. We are emotionally responsive people on an above average level, I mean a commercial can make me cry. So a lot of the stuff on this album is inspired by historic events that actually happen to normal people. We were deeply moved by them, so some of the writing is written in the first person actually happened 200 years ago, but we still feel very deeply about what it must have been to go through those events. So the emotion is very real.

Actually all the writing and recording was done in 2004. It was actually done just before the "War Bird" EP was released, while that EP was being released we were actually recording this album. What happened then was we were in a sort of limbo with our old record label trying to give them time to get themselves together to the point of being able to release this album. Which ultimately didn't happen, but that lead us to working with Relapse, which is fantastic. But what it means is that the material on the record is actually 4 years old rather than us taking a hiatus. During the whole time we have been on the road. We've been positively active, but as I'm sure you well know when you don't have an album out, you're not getting much attention from the media. We were fortunate to still get a few features from US magazines and get some decent regular press on tour because we already had a base from local press when we came through their city. It's depressing because for us as writers we are prolific and as a band we are 100% committed to this. We tour all year! So to have that sort of perception because of label difficulties we went through that it took us 3 years to come up with a new album is very misleading as we already have the next 2 albums already written. We just need time to record them [laughs].

We've toured with Relapse bands quite regularly over the years. We'd often have a Relapse band supporting us for maybe one date when we were in the town they were from. So there was an awareness that we had of the label and they had visa versa for several years. What specifically happened was Matt Jacobson, who founded the label, we'd meet personally and exchanged information several years ago would check in with us periodically and ask if we were ready to work with Relapse? We weren't able to do so obviously for some considerable period of time, but when we became free to do so ultimately they were the best fit.

The way we ultimately come across has never been calculated. When we initially played together we knew we had 'The Thing' that we had both searched for previously. 'The Thing' that all musicians dream of finding in a writing partner and band mate is that you don't have to talk about things We didn't have to have band meetings to discuss which direction are we going in or which outfits are we putting on, you know stuff like that. We both had this essential understanding of music as an amazing multi level proposition for us that we could explore inwardly. That is what keeps us excited about our band and about every instrument that can provide a different inspiration for us when we get into the studio. If we bring in a cello we might have an entirely new song because of the way that sounds. As far as the feminine and very typical masculine qualities, it maybe because we are a boy and a girl in a band. A lot of the heavier stuff comes from me writing wise and some of the gentle stuff he comes up with. It's not even fitting into the gender stereotypes. I guess we are well rounded in having very aggressive qualities but also having gentle qualities and being able to appreciate more gentle nuance and texture. Aswell as being able hammering peoples brains out [laughs].

It's can't be imperative for us, as I don't anticipate being able to do that in every situation particularly when we come to Europe. It will probably be impossible to have as much amplification as we normally do. Which is kind of depressing but we'll work through it [laughs]. Part of why we do the wall of amps is that we want to be surrounded by that sound in a way that normal stage monitoring doesn't give you. Particularly as loud as we like to hear it, and we like to feel the vibrations of what we are doing and having this physical experience with it. We kind of figured out at the beginning of our band that we liked to approach recording as something that was more cerebral in a way. Performance is something we have a hard time pulling back from making it an overwhelming, almost violent explosion of energy. It is a great for us to have all this dichotomy and broad spectrum to work within because we enjoy all these different aspects of music.

Definitely. We've had experiences where sometimes we'll get booked by someone who doesn't know anything about our live shows but they like our records, and book us with a softer band. Then be really shocked when we unload all our equipment and then more often they have a noise ordinance in their venue. Then on the flip side people who want us to be the heavier side of the band, but often listen to the wrong song off the wrong album and think that we aren't that heavy. They then turn up to the show and then it's like "oh my God"!!! 

We've talked to Relapse about wanting to get over there in 2007. We haven't done specific dates but I'd anticipate it would be in the summer. That is what we are looking at, and I need to sort that out in the next month or so, so we know what are other bookings are. It's been a long time coming.

"If Thine Enemy Hunger" is the first Jucifer record to get distribution over seas. How important was / is it to get your message out there?

It's huge. It is something that for several years, essentially since the internet became a real force for people and their lives, we have become aware we have all these fans from around the world. It has been extremely frustrating to know that their only way to get music or information about us was whatever they could find online. As a music fan myself I understand the difference between having something downloaded which is free and you can check out a band your not sure you like. It is nothing like having the album with all the packaging in your hand, and up until now the only way, even in Canada, has been via mail order where you have to pay extra money to get it. Which is worth it for some people but it is great to have the opportunity with someone with a casual interest to check us out in a local store.

The album is being supported by your new video "Pontius Of Palia". You rekindled your relationship with Marc Pilvinsky for the video, what makes Marc the obvious choice for the new video?

There were two reasons why we wanted to work with Marc. The first thing was, we have known him almost since the inception of our band. He was a music writer when we played some of our early shows and wrote some glowing reviews of us, so we knew he was a fan from way back. So we sort of grown up together. The other main reason we wanted to work with him is because we do have that back ground, it allows us to more easily do what we do in every aspect of our music. I don't know how much people dive into the liner notes but we do almost all our own photography, and much of the design work on our albums. As far as our videos we have very strong ideas of how we want them to be, and want to have continue to have control over what is expressed in our music. We feel if we don't keep that control the meaning of the song can entirely changed or the meaning of our band can be misrepresented. Although we have done this for as long as we have we have become aware that it is pretty impossible to control everything that people write about you. This is something we battle to be able to present our band the way we want to present our band, after that point you just have to let it go and say "I kept it as close to my vision and if people do not want to dig it and misunderstand it then that is fine". At least I did it, but to let someone else misrepresent it then you are defiantly not going to control it.

It actually comes from my love to read. I don't get to read for any length of time normally because of being on the road all the time. Which means I'm usually reading five or six books at one time, and one book I'm trying to read at the moment is the Bible. I think it is something that every well read person should have read. It has a very poetic turn of phrase that I appreciate because I like words a lot and love languages. I found that section in the Bible and it seem to really fit with what the songs and the record were about. All the songs deal with someone or something that has been ill-treated and either are being steadfast and resolute, continuing on. Or revolting against that situation and the entirety of that verse was, "if thine enemy hunger, feed him. By doing so you shalt heap coals of fire on his head". 

Jucifer have been labeled many things, but more often than not the term Stoner is used to describe the band. How does this pigeon holing sit with you?

It is kind of interesting as I remember when that term came about and it came to my awareness for the first time. Which was right around 2000 the first time someone said Stoner to me, and it was an interviewer who asked if we considered ourselves to be a Stoner Rock band? I just asked him what was that, as I'd not heard the term yet. Then they mentioned the band Nebula to me, and I thought we had very little in common with this band. They have a lot of wandering guitar solos and things like that which is very different from us. Yeah you expect Stoner bands to be loud and a nice distorted guitar sound, which we do and also you can get high and listen to our music [laughs], but that is it.

Immediately we are working on getting the video out there, we're in the trying to edit it right now. As we are on tour right now, we are having to find computers to get that done. Then we are back on the road in December through probably until early Spring in the US, then fingers crossed across to Europe. That is my immediate future. There are broad strips of things to do and then I just try and keep up of where I'm supposed to be tomorrow [laughs].