For some bands that enter the Kill Screen arcade, their references to video games can either be subtle, cryptic or downright surprising. For the seasoned Soulsborne players among our readership, however, the connection to today’s subject could not be more clear. Wrath of Logarius, a relatively new addition to Season of Mist’s roster, is a direct nod to FromSoftware’s eldritch masterpiece Bloodborne. The Logarius in question is Martyr Logarius, a hard-as-nails but completely optional boss residing in Cainhurst Castle, a terrifying husk of a man turned punishingly difficult monster. It is this tragic figure that serves as the avatar for what the band touts as “formless black metal,” their home-brew blend of black and death metal with an emphasis on the terrors of the cosmic unknown. It seems fitting then that the skull-masked guitarist known only as Urath is selected as our latest player character.

For the following conversation, the guitarist opted to wear his stage mask in order to remain both faceless and nameless. In spite of the memento mori presentation, Urath proves eager to share his fondness for all things horror. The Northern California quartet is anything but singularly-focused on the game that spawned their moniker, nor was their admiration for the title a foregone conclusion. Creatively, the band draws inspiration from weird horror from across games, movies and books. And when it comes to the guitarist, many of his personal picks prove surprisingly normal, making the lore of the band more formless than initially expected. Given our interests, however, it’s their bond with digital dread which we are most interested. With their debut full-length Crown of Mortis released into the world, Decibel’s extremely extreme co-nerds are ready to face the fear.

Looking for bonus DLC to this blackened interview? Be sure to pick up the newest issue of Decibel (dB248/June 2025) for an exclusive excerpt from our discussion with Urath. We promise it’s not nearly as difficult to get through as the Orphan of Kos.

What was your very first gaming experience?
I would say playing at the arcades, like Chuck E. Cheese when I was little. Playing, like, Mortal Kombat back when they used to have it. They used to have some pretty cool games back in the day there. There’s another place that was local called Nickel City. You pay a cover fee to get in, but then all the games would be a nickel, so all of us would just go over there and play Killer Instinct all day or Metal Slug, stuff like that.

That must have been amazing as a kid. I [James] would have lost my mind!
Yeah. And what sucks is I didn’t find out about it, my parents didn’t know, it was always hard to find out about stuff. It was always this rumor and I could never figure out where it was. And then finally I went there for a birthday party and I was able to tell my mom where it was.

So far we’ve heard Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. Are fighting games the go-tos when you’re at the arcade?
Yeah, I do a lot of fighting games and shooters. I was a big fan of Time Crisis and House of the Dead. Silent Scope was really fun, the old Aliens rail shooters and stuff. Jurassic Park, that was a cool rail shooter.

Do you still play those kinds of games?
Yeah, I play a lot of video games actually. But mainly I’ll stick to shooters. I kind of got into the Souls games a little later on after I moved in with some guys, like, 10 years ago. They started telling me about Bloodborne. I was like, “What’s Bloodborne? I don’t understand.” We started kind of going through it, and I was trying to play and I was like, “Dude, this is like impossible to beat.” So it took years of play, stop, play, stop, because as soon as you stop playing those games, you kind of just forget how to play and then you have to start all over again. There’s that big cycle. But yeah, I play a lot of video games, mostly shooters, action games.

What have you been playing lately?
Actually, this is a little different. There’s this old-school battle racer/street racing game called Tokyo Xtreme Racer. They just came out with a new one for 2025. I used to play this all the time back on PS2. Basically, you’re driving around the Tokyo freeway the whole time looking for other racers to battle. The way you win is you have to create and maintain a certain amount of distance to drain their life bar. It’s essentially almost like a fighting game, but it’s a RPG, too, because you’re building up all this stuff. That’s what I’ve been playing a lot of.

Obviously, Wrath of Logarius is a reference to Martyr Logarius from Bloodborne. What is it about this character in particular that you felt best represents this idea of formless black metal as opposed to any of the other characters that you could find in Bloodborne?
You know, that’s kind of a good question. His whole backstory resonated with me more—being part of the Executioners and hunting for his people. It really spoke to me, the type of person he might have been. He seems like he got corrupted at some point and turned into what he is. I was just drawn to that character, the way he looked and his castle and everything. The enemies there are pretty crazy looking, too. I was just drawn to that character.

Did you spend a lot of time looking up the lore while you were playing the game? What was the experience like when you first encountered Bloodborne?
Initially, I was just trying to get through it, to be honest. It was a super brutal game. You’ve got to sit there and grind it out. Figuring out how to stack different things with your levels and what kind of weapons you’re using and all that stuff, and then different runes. That all came later on with our guitar player Vastator. I got him into that and then we started playing co-op and we ended up beating it and trying to see how far we could get through it. But during that time, we would find new notes and kind of figure out what the whole thing was, and then we’d go online and listen to different lore. It’s pretty much all speculation, nobody really knows for sure. That’s kind of what we really like about it.

Yeah, part of the appeal on the lore for some people is that you have to really dig into it, spend time on it and actively pursue it. It sounds like that’s an element you enjoy.
Yeah, we like doing that. We kind of keep it cryptic in the music as well. We don’t really say exactly what we’re doing. We always gotta word it in a way as if you found a letter inside the the game or something. The cover art, too, for the new album, I really wanted that to kind of look like a canvas you’d find in the game because I know you gotta find different artworks in Elden Ring. I wanted it to kind of look like it was from that era.

Was Bloodborne your first FromSoft ARPG?
Yeah, but I played Tenchu a lot back in the day, too. They made a couple of the later ones. But yeah, the first Soulslike was definitely Bloodborne, and then I went into Dark Souls and then Elden Ring after that.

Obviously Bloodborne has resounded at least somewhat more considering the band name. Is there one particular reason you find Bloodborne really kept you hooked more than some of the other ones?
I think it’s because it’s more based off of cosmic horror. I grew up on a lot of John Carpenter movies, like The Thing. Maybe you can throw some other movies in there. Stuff like that or Lovecraftian stuff, it’s just weird. When you read it, it’s like, What is going on? And you start trying to piece all this stuff together. I just like the idea of it all being up for interpretation, like nobody really knows any real answers, it’s all just speculation. At its core is what people are afraid of: the unknown. Nobody knows what these creatures look like, nobody knows what they do, where they’re from. That’s what really makes it visceral.

“I just like the idea of [Bloodborne] being up for interpretation, like nobody really knows any real answers, it’s all just speculation. At its core is what people are afraid of: the unknown.”

In speaking with New Noise magazine, you had said, “We were melting everything cosmic horror from video games, books, movies, etc. together into inspiration for the band.” Books and movies have long been inspiration for metal bands—that’s not anything new. But what was it about video games that felt like a necessary addition to the formula?
A lot of it was brutal settings like Bloodborne. The DLC on there is really brutal looking. A big part of it, what really kind of inspired a lot of the melodic sections we use is the soundtracks for the games. Ludwig’s soundtrack [“Ludwig, the Holy Blade”] is just crazy. It’s hard to explain, but it gives you this weird pit in your stomach. Same thing with Cleric Beast—it gives you this severe anxiety as you’re battling it. A lot of it had to do with the soundtracks that they put in the games and the setting as you’re playing it. It just pairs perfectly.

Would you say then that some of the soundtracks have actively influenced you? Not that you’re pulling something directly, but influence some of your writing, your melody choices, pacing or anything?
Yeah, I would think so. I want a lot of them to kind of sound like they would be almost like a boss battle or a very disparaging moment or something for a character. All this stuff is all based off of these short stories that [vocalist] Noctifer and I have thrown together and discuss the lore based off what everything is. We want to try and take the idea of, Well, the video game developers wanted to feel this way for this boss battle, this way for this section, that way for that section, so we try to approach it like that as well.

The approach that you’ve named it is formless black metal. Even though Wrath of Logarius is not your stereotypical second wave Norwegian lo-fi raw black metal, black metal is still part of the equation. What made black metal such a good base for your interpretation of the FromSoft approach to gaming?
When you’re playing death metal, it’s hard to translate that emotional layer. With Bloodborne and Dark Souls, whatever thing you find, you read it and it’s like, “This person’s being tortured,” “This person didn’t see their family,” “This person died alone.” It’s all this despair you hear about, and black metal really had that. It kind of completed the package for us in order to make this more rounded out and let people hear what we’re trying to do.

FromSoft is a pretty common name brought up in the column. It’s had this seismic impact when it comes to underground metal specifically. A lot of bands now are openly either writing songs about either Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring, or they’re making subtle references—something like the case of Tomb Mold—where it’s a bit less apparent. For you being in a band that openly wears that influence on your sleeve, what is it about the series to you that speaks specifically to the underground metal mindset?
I would say because it’s so open, I think it leaves a lot for these people to kind of figure out what it means to them, really. That kind of sits a little more with that style, ultimately. People generally in this genre, they live in their heads. It’s crazy. A lot of people are amazing artists, amazing musicians, and it’s all because they have this internal thing going on. I think there’s a lot of that that kind of pairs up with it.

Do you have any hope that Sony’s going to bring about a Bloodborne remaster or a sequel? Or are you happy to just let Bloodborne be Bloodborne?
A remaster would be cool, but it’s kind of what it is at this point. It’s been so long, I don’t know if anybody would really benefit from it. Maybe if we wait even longer when the technology really advances, it’d probably make a comeback. I would like to see a Bloodborne II that would be open world like Elden Ring. I’ve seen Elden Ring mods on PC that change everything over to this Bloodborne aesthetic. That was always pretty cool. I haven’t modded my Elden Ring to look like Bloodborne yet, but I’ll probably try and do that. But they’d have to do something that would be a big open-world thing. Whether or not they do it, I don’t know—especially with them making another Elden Ring [Elden Ring: Nightreign], this fast spin-off thing.

Yeah, the longer that they wait, I [Michael] feel like the expectations are only going to grow exponentially until they do something. It might be a little bit hard to top what everybody wants in their mind.
Right. Everybody has these huge ideas of what you can do with it. It’s one of those things where it’s like, Ehhh, maybe they shouldn’t do it. I don’t know. You could take Star Wars for example, right? The new trilogy came out and everybody’s like, “What is this? I don’t know what this is.” It’s just not what people had in their head or what they expected. It’s probably a similar idea.

There are plenty of games outside of Bloodborne that have tackled cosmic horror. Are there any other titles or franchises that stick out to you as being of note or any kind of influence to Wrath of Logarius?
Yeah, there’s been a lot of stuff. We think of things like Aliens and Dead Space as the future of cosmic horror, and we’re kind of in Victorian-era cosmic horror. That’s kind of how I make sense of it in my head. It’s all kind of connected. I don’t know, it’s kind of weird. But I would think that stuff like Aliens and Doom would be the future, and then Victorian era would be where Bloodborne sits. I love pretty much all that stuff. Silent Hill has a cosmic horror element to it. I’d kind of argue that just because you’re just stuck in this nightmare.

I mean, you’re talking to the biggest simp for Silent Hill of all time [Michael].
Yeah, dude. That was huge. When I was, like, 12, I could have written you a strat guide for the PS1 version, for sure. I put so many hours on that game. I don’t know why they haven’t remade it yet. I love 2, but I want to play the first one, too.

Eldritch horror has definitely seen a surge in popularity in no small part to indie developers—obviously taking influence from games like Bloodborne, Eternal Darkness, Call of Cthulhu, things like that—to tackle something as lofty as cosmic horror. Do you prefer the attempts that are made by AAA studios that have the bigger budgets to take on such a larger concept or do you prefer smaller developers who are tackling such a strange concept with no expectation of return on investment [with] a bit more freedom to really get strange with the mechanics of it?
The indie developers definitely make some some weird stuff. I know I see a lot. I think it has its own category on Steam. You can click on “cosmic horror” and probably see stuff like that. I played one called Moons of Madness. It was pretty trippy. I think the older I get, the more I kind of drift towards PC and indie games. I’m starting to take more gratification in playing these indie studio games, like Tokyo Xtreme Racer. Nobody’s ever heard of that, but for some reason, you’ll get a game with, like, one or two guys making the thing and it’s better than a lot of the stuff that came out in the last two years, you know? I’m kind of drifting towards PC now and I’m probably gonna make the full transition probably pretty soon.

What have you been playing on prior?
Usually I play PS5 and Xbox, but I kind of just realized I’m playing the same games over and over. It’s always multiplayer shooters and stuff like that. It’s like, Well, I kind of want to get inspired more than get pissed off at some 12-year old kid killing me.

It sounds like part of the draw on that is that you would like to spend time on some things that are a little different than, say, your Call of Duty and stuff. Do you find that inspires you a little more?
Yeah. Mainly, I’m a really visual person. I was very into sculpting, painting—I did a bunch of different things, different mediums. When I look at stuff, I kind of hear things sometimes, like, this soundtrack could go with that thing. I also do short films and stuff like that, so I’m always thinking about music that goes with visuals all the time. So when I play video games, I’m constantly thinking about that, too.

Obvious one aside, if you were given the chance to create your own score, soundtrack, whatever for a video game, is there a particular title, franchise, or even something as broad as a genre that you find you would be most interested in working on?
You know, I always liked the stuff in Silent Hill. It’s that weird type of rock. The band Placebo, they kind of remind me of the Silent Hill type of music. I’ve always liked that—that really dark, folky type music. I don’t know how to explain what the genre is. The weird sounds they have in Silent Hill is always pretty trippy, too. I’m very into strange noises and stuff like that. We’ve kind of talked about instead of doing an orchestral backing track thing for black metal, what if we were to do this cinematic, cosmic chorus sci-fi thing in the background? But we gotta figure out where that fits because those noises are so big and distorted, and they could be pretty much whatever. But yeah, I think a Silent Hill-type eerie folk music thing would be cool.

It sounds sounds like you’ve already started LP2. So, you’re transitioning into PC gaming, you’re seeking out this kind of headier kind of gaming, something a bit more narrative. But you brought up shooters being your go-to multiplayer experience, where you’ve been spending a fair bit of time. What, to you, is the value of being of having this multiplayer, not-as-heavy of an experience in gaming? What is the importance of escapism in gaming to you?
I think everybody kind of needs to have those releases and gaming is just a different direction for you to have it, kind of gets you thinking. One that would get you thinking would be Indigo Prophecy, that game’s pretty trippy. Stuff like that. I think people who play video games generally, like I said, live in their own head. They’re very creative people. It’s not to say that other people aren’t, but I think everybody’s drawn to different things. Some people will watch crazy crime dramas and stuff like that, some people will watch movies, some people bake. I think it’s important for people to have these releases, and I think that’s really what it does.

Beyond Elden Ring: Nightreign—which I think everybody on the planet is counting down the days for—are there any other games that are coming up that you’re excited to check out?
I haven’t been paying too much attention to anything recently. I’ve been doing all the music stuff, to be honest. I like Tokyo Xtreme Racer because I can just jump in, jump out. It plays like a multiplayer game where you just show up and do your thing and get out of there. But I’ve been so busy with music. I even bought the new Ninja Turtles game [Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate] and I haven’t really gotten too deep into that. I’ve been meaning to get into that. But as far as new games, I couldn’t tell you what’s coming out this year, really.

The way you said that made it sound like this isn’t the way you normally do things. Do you normally keep an eye on the calendar?
I usually know what’s coming out and when it’s coming out. But I have such a big backlog, too. I still gotta finish [God of War:] Ragnarok. I gotta finish Resident Evil 4, I think I made it about halfway through. Alan Wake 2 is there. I have so much stuff just backed up. I feel like I’m kind of at a point where I’ll just catch up when I can. I think that’s part of why I haven’t really thought about what’s coming out. But yeah, usually I try to keep up and I buy everything. I kind of realized, Well, I bought this and I haven’t played it, and then it ends up on Game Pass or something for free. I should have just waited and maybe played it for free.

With the franchises you mentioned there—obviously we’ve been talking about Soulsborne, Silent Hill, Alan Wake and stuff—that Turtles seemed like a bit of an outlier. You haven’t really talked too much about Nintendo stuff or the bright-colored side of this. Do you normally lean more towards the darker or more serious tones, or do you mix it up with a bunch of this and that from all over?
I think it’s maybe 60 percent dark horror stuff and the rest is just random stuff that I grew up with, like Turtles. I was a huge fan of Turtles back in the day. That was another game we used to play in the arcades, too—the four-player Turtles. Whenever new stuff comes out that’s been in my brain for, like, 25 years, then I’ll usually check that out.

Do you get to make it to arcades much anymore?
Not really, no. I’ve been meaning to build one, but I usually use emulators and stuff and we just play at the practice room. It’s typically what we do. There’s a few arcades here, but they’re usually pretty noisy and there’s a lot of obnoxious people around. [Laughs]

Is gaming a shared experience within the band? I know that you said that you teamed up for Bloodborne, but is it a communal experience or a solo experience typically?
It’s usually communal. We would play Bloodborne a lot, we played a lot of Elden Ring a lot together. That that would be kind of it. Call of Duty would would happen a lot, too. What else? Far Cry 5 was pretty cool. Usually if there’s a good co-op game that everybody likes, we’ll jump on it at one point or another. More or less, it’s 50/50, everybody does their own thing and then jumps on something.

Would you say everybody in the band at least has passing interests in different games or is there one person in the band who’s like, “Yeah, I don’t get any of this?”
No, I think everybody has a pretty good grip on what’s going on with stuff. Whether or not they play it actively is different. I haven’t turned on Bloodborne in maybe… every once in a while I’ll turn it on to see what I was doing before, but I haven’t really sat there and done a playthrough in a while.

If you were to suggest somebody to pick up a game from the FromSoft catalog, but you can’t pick Bloodborne, which would be the first one that you would pick?
It would probably be either Demon’s Souls or Dark Souls III. I would typically say do Dark Souls III because it’s definitely a little more accessible than Demon’s Souls, but Demon’s Souls definitely looks a lot better. It’s just whether or not you can punish yourself to get through Demon’s Souls.

Those are two starkly different titles. Demon’s Souls, you’re getting gang jumped into that one. Even if you’re a fan of the franchise, playing that one is rough at times. It’s tough.
Yeah, I still haven’t finished it. It’s so hard. I gotta burn through it. But man, that’s one of the ones that’s in my back catalog, too.

Crown of Mortis is out now via Season of Mist and can be ordered here.
Follow Wrath of Logarius on Bandcamp and Instagram.

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