Australian Metal Titans Ne Obliviscaris On Tour With Psycroptic
In a seismic collision of Australian metal titans, Ne Obliviscaris have enlisted the legendary Psycroptic as their very special guests for a groundbreaking national tour this June.
This marks the first time these two powerhouse acts have toured across Australia together and will be their first shows together since 2008. The tour promises to be a historic event for metal fans across the country with Ne Obliviscaris set to deliver an ambitious two-hour set featuring their seminal albums Citadel and Exul in full and Psycroptic bringing their unrelenting technical mastery and savagery to the stage! Tim Charles talks to Hi Fi Way about the tour.
Must be really exciting period of time, just waiting for this tour to get up and going.
Yeah, it is really exciting. It’s one of those things where, you know, we just jumped off the road. We were in North America for five and a half weeks, and got back a week ago. As soon as we got home, you spend a few days trying to recover, and then all of a sudden, oh, this is around the corner, you know, only a couple of weeks away. It’s been actually a really good amount of time in between tours, because it gives us enough time to get a little bit of a breather and a little bit of rest, but not enough time to get rusty, or forget the songs, or have to practice too much as a band. Coming back and doing shows in Australia is always one of the most fun tours we do anywhere in the world. It’s exciting to be almost here.
Does it feel like the hard work’s starting to really pay off? It just seems like you’re starting to make some serious inroads overseas now.
Yeah, it has basically felt that way ever since our latest album, Exul, came out a couple of years ago. Now, every tour that we’ve done since the new album came out has been the biggest tour that we’ve done up to that point. The crowds that were coming out in Europe and the U.S.A. were just about double, or significantly more wherever we went, which was really fantastic and that’s been nice, because there’s been a lot of love for Ne Obliviscaris in Australia for a long time, and the rest of the world is slowly catching up, which is nice.
Having the jewel kind of, you know, is there Psycroptic joining on tour as well adds even more muscle to the tour?
Yeah, with Psycroptic, they’ve been a band that we’ve looked up to for a long time. When we first started as a band, they were already doing incredible things, and they were a band we would go to see and that we opened up for. We have so much respect for them. And it’s actually the first time we’ve done a full Australian tour with them. The last time we played with them was more than fifteen years ago. We opened up for them in Melbourne and Canberra, maybe. It’s been a long time to get back together again. But we’re all huge fans of them. So it’s going to be a really cool combination.
It must make it easier touring with people that you’ve got that sort of mutual respect for, and consider friends as well?
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s one of my favorite things about being in Ne Obliviscaris. It’s the fact that there are bands I love, that I listen to their records, and that I’m a big fan of and you had that mutual respect where you can tour together, and get a different way of experiencing those acts that you really enjoy.
With the set list and playing two big albums, does that take quite a bit of rehearsing to nail some of those songs?
Yeah, it does. I mean, most of that rehearsal is done individually with us. We did this tour with the set list of Citadel and Exul, both albums in full. We did it in Europe last October. There was a lot of preparation to make sure it was ready for that. Thankfully, that went really well, and we heard loud and clear from the Australian fans that they wanted to see that show here as well, which is why we’re here. I think one of the challenges is just the length of the show. Getting into the habit of being able to sing for a two-hour show, being able to maintain concentration and energy, and making sure that it works well for the audience and for the band. Thankfully for the Australian audiences, we’ve already done this show about thirty times. We just did it a couple of weeks ago in Mexico. We did it in Europe last year, and we definitely think we’ve got the hang of how to run this. We’re excited to up the ante and make this an even more special version for the Australian fans.
The things that actually took the most time for me personally to relearn were some of the smaller tracks like Devour Me, Colossus (Part II): Contortions, which is a small outro track that only goes for two or three minutes. We had never played it live before, and I had never even played it outside of the studio back in 2014. So when we looked at doing this, I thought, how do I exactly play that? Because I hadn’t actually played the part in a decade. It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s just that I wrote it in the studio, and it was never something we did live. Then, ten years later, I’m listening to the recording thinking, what did I do there? Trying to work it out. Another one that’s actually quite difficult to play is Painters Of The Tempest (Part III): Reveries from the Stained Glass Womb. It’s just an acoustic track with Benji and myself. The violin part for that has quite a lot of notes. It’s something I need to practice quite a bit to make sure I can nail it each time and that’s one where it’s just Benji and myself on stage by ourselves, with absolutely nothing else. It’s a beautiful track. It’s great to be able to play songs like that where Painters Of The Tempest in full is a three-part, twenty-three minute song. It’s been a while since we’ve played the full version. Definitely something I really enjoy.
Does the new front man James Dorton bring a different dynamic to the show?
Yeah, it does. James Dorton has been touring with us as our vocalist for two years but only officially a band member since January. The only tour he didn’t do in the last two years was the Australian tour we did in September 2023, which Xen did. So from that perspective, it’s great for the Australian fans to see what this updated version of the live show is like, because Australia is almost the last place in the world to see us with James on vocals. His energy is definitely a little bit different from Xen’s. I always made the comparison that it’s not about better or worse. It’s just about acknowledging the differences. James is an incredible live performer, and he and I get along great. I think we’re building really amazing chemistry, and excited to show that off.
Celebrating the tenth anniversary of Citadel on this tour, are you continually blown away by the impact that album has had and continues to have?
Yeah, I mean, that was the album for us that opened up the international market. Portal of I, our debut record, was a great success in an underground way, but most people didn’t hear it at the time. It was still a very underground record, and we were a very underground band. The release of Citadel launched us across Europe and the U.S., giving us the opportunity to grow beyond Australia.
Did you expect that album in particular to really throw you into the international spotlight?
I mean, if I’m being honest, I did. Not because I necessarily thought it was better than Portal of I, but I knew I was very proud of it. We were really proud of it. It felt like it was going to create an opportunity for us to reach more people internationally. We also knew that we had things lined up, we had a record label with Season of Mist on that record, and we had booking agents in the U.S. and Europe ready to book tours for us. So, we knew we had the infrastructure set up to launch internationally. We just needed to make sure the album was good enough, and thankfully, it was.
As things started taking off, what were some of the highlights for you?
The first thing I think of is, not too long after the album came out, about six months after, we went to India and headlined a festival there in front of twelve thousand people. It was absolutely insane.
We played Soundwave Festival, which was the biggest thing we’d done in Australia at that point. We really stepped up the venues we were headlining in Australia, in Melbourne, for example, we played 170 Russell for the first time. That’s about a thousand-capacity venue, and I had seen so many bands I love play there. So getting to perform there, but with us as the headliner, was a big change.
Another huge moment was heading to Europe for the first time in the middle of 2025. We played eleven of the best and biggest heavy metal festivals in that European summer, playing for five to ten thousand people at Hellfest, then a few days later at Graspop in Belgium, and continuing on across Europe. We were performing alongside so many of our favorite bands, and we had never done that on such a scale before. We were very much the newcomers at those festivals, and I noticed a shift when we returned in 2024 after Exul came out. Suddenly, we weren’t trying to prove that we belonged on those stages, we just knew that we did. We’ve been doing this for a while now, and we feel established. Even backstage, running into other bands, there were a lot more people who knew who we were, and that’s something I’m very proud of.
What’s next for the band? Are there plans for new music, or do you get to take a bit of a break after all this touring?
Definitely no break at the moment! When I come home, I manage the band and run the business side of things, so I’m always busy planning what’s next. We have some European festivals coming up this August after the Australian tour. Then later in the year, there’s another tour that we haven’t announced yet, so I can’t say what it is, but it’s going to be a big one overseas. In between those tours, we’re working on writing the new record. We’re planning to release new music sometime in 2026, I don’t know when exactly, but that’s the next big thing.
Do you already have ideas in mind, or is it still in the early stages?
Both! There’s a lot of embryonic stuff, but also some ideas we’re really excited about. In the early stages, you don’t always know which ideas will take precedence. We usually have a lot of ideas, and then when we’re about halfway through writing the record, we have to pick and choose what fits together. Sometimes, great ideas get pushed aside because they don’t quite fit with what we’re doing. Right now, we’re just writing a bunch of material and will see how it all comes together later.
Do you need to be off the road to write, or can you do it during sound checks or downtime?
We try, but we’re not great at writing on the road. I had hoped to do some writing during our last U.S. tour, but it didn’t happen, partly because I got sick earlier in the tour and needed to rest when we weren’t on stage. I think once we finish this Australian tour, we’ll have a little time at home before heading to Europe in August, and that time is earmarked for writing. We definitely won’t be back in Australia again this year, but once we have the new record out, we’ll be back for sure.
Interview By Rob Lyon
Catch Ne Obliviscaris on the following dates, tickets HERE…
