Formed in 1997 as Crucible of Agony, the industrial death metal act from Sydney Australia changed their name to The Amenta in 2001. The following year, they released their debut album, a three-song EP entitled Mictlan. Two years later, Occasus [Listenable, 2004] hit the music market. It would be another five years before their second full-length album nOn [Listenable, 2009] would reach store shelves. But even longer in the making was the band’s North American debut.

That’s about to change.

The Monsters of Death Tour, featuring Vader, Decrepit Birth Warbringer, Augury and, yup, you guessed, The Amenta, kicks off on Nov. 4 in Baltimore, MD and will run for 38 dates across North America.

“It’s amazing. This has been a great year for us,” enthuses The Amenta’s sampler/programmer Timothy Pope. “We toured in Europe for the first time at the start of this year, and now to follow it up with a North American tour of this size is unbelievable. When you start playing in bands, there are certain things that you want to achieve, and to be able to tick two of those boxes in one year is huge for us.”

Why has it taken so long to make it over here?

We would have been over that way before, but it’s hard coming from Australia. You really need to put in huge amounts of work to be considered a viable option for tours when you come from a country that is so ridiculously far away. We’ve released two albums, and they were well received, but it’s taken us this long to get in front of the right people. I guess it’s a case of impressing someone who puts in a good word and then doors start to open. It’s a shame we haven’t been over before because we’ve always had great feedback from North America, and Canada especially. It will be great to finally get over there and show people what we can do. I am sure, once we show people how fucking good we are, we’ll come back over again and again.

What benefits will a tour like this have for you?

The biggest benefit is that we get to play for people who have never seen us before. While I consider us a very studio-orientated band, a lot of people have told me they didn’t really understand us until they saw us live. Our albums are quite studied and controlled, but our live shows are very aggressive and chaotic, so I think people see a different side of the band. I am sure that we will open some minds and blow some people away, and that’s always a huge benefit. Another benefit I guess is that we are giving our new line-up a trial by fire. If this line up works on this tour, then it’s pretty concrete I reckon.

What kind of logistics have gone into getting ready for this tour?

Thankfully for me, Erik (Miehs, guitars) has been looking after the logistics, but it’s been a hard slog for him. We’ve had to organize transport, insurance, visas, etc. A big thanks to Augury for helping us out with transport! Visas are strange things, we had to jump through hoops in order to get approval to apply for a visa, then you apply and it’s over in 10 minutes.

How about on the technical side of things?

While most of the world runs at 240 volts, North America runs at 110, which means all our gear will be underpowered if we use our normal power supplies. We’ve had to order power supplies and have them delivered in the U.S. Obviously, all my keyboard and samples gear needs power, so if I don’t get that sorted I don’t play.

What can you tell us about the new line-up?

Cain (Cressall, vocals) lives about as far away from us as it is possible to get while still being in Australia. We’re on the extreme east; he’s on the extreme west. It’s almost like hiring an LA-based guitarist when your band comes from New York. When we went offer to Perth to play a gig earlier this year, we stayed with him and played with his other band. Usually we are a very cynical bunch of guys and it’s very hard for a band to impress us, but Cain had our jaws on the floor. He was aggressive and creepy and had the best stage presence of anyone I have ever seen. We decided almost immediately that he would be our go-to guy if anything happened with Jarrod (Krafczyk, former guitarist). Thankfully he was as into the idea as us and jumped at the chance. We’ve known Dan (Quinlan, bass) for a while. He’s a great bass player and an excellent live and studio engineer. He’d worked with us before and we knew he would fit very well personality-wise. He’s had a lot of touring experience and he’s great on stage, so it was a pretty obvious choice.

What’s it been like, trying to get ready for the tour from the angle of forming a new chemistry with band mates?

It’s been difficult to get organized. We had arranged visas and those matters when we had to change line-ups, so we had to run around fixing that up. Thankfully we are dealing with very easy-going, committed guys, so that was all sorted with minimum stress. This tour will be a real test of the chemistry. Thus far we have only played one show with this line-up, though we will have done two more before the first show on the tour. I am very confident that we are better than we have ever been. We have been rehearsing like crazy and I know we are playing the best of our career, so I have no worries on that score. And I think, while we all have our moments of craziness, we have a very mature and thoughtful bunch of guys.

It’s been a year since n0n came out. Any plans to write or record again in the near future, or are we going to have to wait again!

That’s our plan once we have finished this tour. We are not going to be playing in Australia again for a while but will instead work on the next album. We are not a quick band to write. A lot of experimentation and dead ends happen before we get an idea of the next song and how it will work. We don’t want to repeat ourselves at all, so it is important for us to find a way forward that is exciting and doesn’t compromise our ideas. I would hope to have the album written by the end of next year. Hopefully recorded not too long after. We had what seemed like, at least to outsiders, a large break in-between our first two albums, so it would be good to minimize that gap a little.

Will you be performing mostly from the latest album on this tour?

Our set at the moment is about 60 per cent from nOn, and 40 per cent from Occasus. Playing the new songs is great for us, but it’s also nice to bring out the older ones. And to a North American audience, these will all be new.

So what can these audiences expect from your set then?

We are a confronting band to see live. We believe very strongly in out music and message. We are arrogant and aggressive. I firmly believe in having a distance between audience and performer for the sole reason of crossing that distance and shattering that wall. We are theatrical without being camp like so many black metal bands can be. We are ugly, violent and chaotic but with a precision that has only come through a lot of work.