Exclusive: Hangman's Chair Release New Video For Naive

French doomsters Hangman's Chair have announced their fifth album, Banlieu Triste, due for release on September 27 via Spinefarm.

It's a grief-stricken offering from the Parisian quartet, with a darkness that comes not from the wilderness that so often makes up doom, but a more gritty, claustrophobic urban setting. The title translates as Sad Suburb, and listening to its collection of streetlamp-lit urban nightmares, the reason why immediately becomes understandable.

Check out the video for Naive below…

We spoke to drummer Mehdi Birouk Thépegnier to get to know this darkest of bands…

You have a much more urban, gritty feel and atmoshpere than is normally associated with this type of dark metal metal. Where does that come from?
"That urban mood and cold atmosphere come naturally from our way of living, in a big city like Paris. We've always been very influenced by what goes around here, Paris is definitely a source of inspiration for us. We can relate to it, and for us it makes sense – we couldn't make it another way. It's about being as sincere and believable as possible for us and for the listener. We take as an inspiration, for example, Type O Negative, with their brilliant 'urban cold wave hardcore' or whatever you wanna call it. They always used that combination of dark gothic metal with their Brooklyn urban ambiance in their covers and lyrics. It's just being true to myself."

The album is very very dark. How much real life experience went into its creation?
"We definitely felt it was comfortable that way, as dark and cold as possible, musically, and we've never been so personal, lyrically. During the two years of the [previous album] This Is Not Supposed To Be Positive period, many things happened in our lives, things that we needed to talk about in our songs. We had to create a positive energy with all those events, which helped us to get into our creating process for Banlieue Trist."

What is important to you personally when creating this kind of music?
"Firstly I would say it's about seeing each other. We grew up together as brothers from other mothers, we started playing music, Julien [guitar] and I when we were kids. It's probably just an excuse to keep our relationship alive since the early ’90s. But it's also to keep us alive so far. Secondly, for our part, we just believe in music. We use this art as a therapy. All our life experiences, our negativity and feelings, we transform it all as an energy. People do the same as us, as hard workers in a day job, or young couples having kids, or as serial killer or a mass murderer, or as a hooligan fighting every weekend before or after a football game... this is the way we found to cure our mad minds."

You say the album comes with a tinge of nostalgia. Is that for a better time?
"Everything got started from the cover art, when Dave Decat, our Belgian illustrator, came in with this picture of an old subburban guetto city of Paris from the ’80s or ’90s. That's where it began. We decided from this black and white picture to pop the cover up around our story and imagery from our past. You can see this kid on his bed looking at this vinyl of a French singer, in this room with all those old French movie posters on the walls, and we added many personal elements as well on it. We did that to the other picture of the train yard, too. That reminded us of our teenage lives, when we use to get those old trains to leave from our suburb city to downtown Paris. That's why we talk about a nostalgic feeling on this cover."