The Dutch group Endless Cycle has been around since 2007. Their debut album Into The Opaque was self released in November last year (2011). Although the feedback on this album was mainly positive (see our review here) they are still relatively unknown. Metal Exposure talked with vocalist Boris van der Weij to get more familiar with this band!

13-03-2012 – By Laetitia
Endless Cycle is a band that mixes a lot of different metal styles in their music. They didn’t deliberately choose to play a complex form of music explains Van der Weij. “That’s just the way our music evolved. It has partly to do with our music influences. Our main influence is Opeth. It’s a very diverse band: heavy and soft music, clean vocals and grunts and so on. I like their older work like Deliverance but the new record, Heritage, shows that the guys from Opeth are great musicians.”

The band is still little known in the Dutch metal scene. We wondered if Boris sees internet as a curse or a blessing for a band as Endless Cycle. “I think both. There are few people left who buy CD’s. Mostly collectors buy CD’s and special editions. It’s something we notice as a band too. After a show, people respond very enthusiastic but they won’t buy our album. It’s also a blessing for us. Promoting the band has become easy. For example: we can do e-mail interviews. That saves us time and money since you don’t have to travel somewhere for an interview.” (Note: this was not an e-mail interview, the author is principally against it.)

As stated before, Endless Cycle released their debut album last year. Boris tells us about the writing process for songs. “Everybody contributes to writing the Endless Cycle songs. Mostly guitarist Maarten D’Haese starts with some riffs. At first we composed songs in our rehearsal room but we haven’t written much lately since we are busy performing.” The grunts and vocal lines are also written by Maarten en Boris. The lyrics aren’t about a specific theme tells Van der Weij. “We write about topics that interest us, or tell stories of ourselves and other people.” As an example he names the song Opaque Portrait. It is a story about two lovers. One of them died, the other visits the grave with a new love interest. A sort of betrayal so to speak.

Into The Opaque was self released. “It was our only option,” clarifies Boris. “Of course we were searching for a label. But when we spoke to several people we figured out that ‘getting discovered’, and having your record released by a label isn’t that easy anymore. So we decided to take matters into our own hands.” When talking about learning moments for the band with regard to self releasing an album, Van der Weij laughs. “Most certainly we’ve learned some things. First of all and most importantly: get all your agreements with other people down on paper. No matter how well you might know (or think you know) the other person. Write it down. In the end it’s your money and your product, you want it to be good.” If it is necessary the group is willing to do another DIY release. “But” says Boris “we hope that Endless Cycle gets picked up by a label in the meantime.”

In the near future Endless Cycle will continue performing and start working on new material.
“Our dream as a band is to eventually play on one of the big summer festivals like Graspop or Rock Werchter. It should be amazing to play in such an environment, in front of so many people,” tells Van der Weij happily. Well, we can only wish Endless Cycle good luck with that enterprise and hopefully watch them on such a festival when the day comes!

Endless Cycle