Two school friends met with a guy through Friendster. Both of whom shared similar interest, envisioning to establish a metal band of their own. Whereas this guy had been playing as session guitarist in some local metal bands, including Sahujja'Achra.
It all started somewhere at the end of 2006 when Ail, the then guitarist of Abysmal Thoughts befriended a fellow who happened to study at the same night class that he went to; Arif. While they were in the toilet during a break, they started off discussing about Metallica in which Ail referred to Arif's wispy goatee as reminiscent of later James Hetfield. Intrigued by this remark, Arif began curiously asking Ail whether he knew about Metallica and metal in general. Much to his surprise, Arif found out that Ail had been a long time fan of Metallica and heavy metal music. After a delightful revelation, they further developed a friendship with Arif began introducing Ail to heavier, more extreme underground metal bands.
Later that night, Ail contacted his long time friend whom he knew to have been very passionate about extreme metal; Han. The latter was also responsible for introducing Ail and his small circle of associates to bands such as Napalm Death, Deicide, Darkthrone, Burzum, Samael and Sil Khannaz during their stint at secondary and religious school. Ail sent few text messages to Han, most of which inquired him whether or not Han knew about the bands being mentioned in those texts, to which he responded by saying some of them did sound familiar. They later met with each other at a restaurant, where Ail introduced Han to Arif after they ordered some pirated metal albums from Arif at a price of BND$3,00 each. Since then, they maintained good communication with Arif bringing them to jam a few songs at his place as well as other jamming studio.
Prior to the creation of Dark Verministry, Han and Ail had established their own band with no apparent direction they could focus on. The two were accompanied by Hadi and Hakim with
Sam occasionally lending a helping hand on bass. Among the songs that they regularly jammed prior meeting with Arif were Guns 'n' Roses, Creed and some other well known commercial hard rock acts. Sam however tried pulling Han and the rest of his friends into liking emo music, to which Han initially gave a nod since he wanted to have some taste of said genre. However, Han soon developed vehement animosity toward emo when some of its local fans began associating emo with Gothic rock / metal. The reason being Gothic had nothing to do with emo at the first place and that suicide among emo - obsessed teenagers was completely irrelevant. Sometime later, Han, Ail, Hakim and Sam promulgated Abysmal Thoughts as their moniker. According to Han, he named the band after a line from
Dimmu Borgir's song 'Behind the Curtains of Night - Phantasmagoria' which can be found in their 1999 album
Spiritual Black Dimensions; "[R]esurged in torrents of abysmal thoughts". At one point, Han expressed his concern that the music they were playing did not really fit in with what he actually envisioned. They nevertheless continued on to jam using the name Abysmal Thoughts.
In the afternoon of 2007, Han was called in to perform for a mini talent show that took place at now partially defunct
Jerudong Park. He was shocked to receive such a news since the band had not been informed of doing any live performance any where in their country, let alone at the aforementioned amusement park. Once there, Ail and the rest quickly packed up their gear and assembled the equipments for a sound check which consumed significant amount of time. They stood watching each band perform in the cafe in front of them. Upon learning the fact that majority of the bands who came to perform on that day were playing emo / screamo type of music, Ail, Hakim and Han began to feel nervous since no way they could outperform those bands' prowess given that they had only started to play music in just under a year. This was particularly true with Han feeling quite anxious; he realised that his drumming skills were terribly mediocre compared to what he saw at that time. They later gathered among themselves with a new thing in mind; they were there for anything but to perform. Sam hired two vocalists; an unknown male and his female colleague by the name Elle, without prior informing the rest of the band. They later acquainted with their newly hired live singer Elle. They asked her to memorise the lyrics to
Don't Cry which was perhaps the only old school hard rock song to have ever been played during the show. When Abysmal Thoughts were called on to perform, they played the song smoothly. It was until Ail lead solo part that thing started to get awry; he tried to play the solos wholeheartedly but since his guitar was held too high above waist level, the cable suddenly got unplugged, leaving the rest of his friends feeling quite shaky. The audience however rounded some applause although the sincerity might as well be questionable. At the end of their performance, the band quickly dismissed themselves from the venue out of embarrassment. Later they learned that Abysmal Thoughts had been given the worst possible review by the event organiser, citing that some instruments as well as Elle vocal were no where near audible. Distraught, the band quietly settled to jam on their own with no possibility of playing any more live shows in the future.
Initially Han wanted to create his own black metal band. This was what brought him to know Buie (alternate spelling Boy / Boi) from Tutong. The two first got acquainted through Friendster which by now had been long abandoned by the duo. Knowing that Buie was able to play rhythm guitar, Han asked Ail whether they could recruit him into Abysmal Thoughts, to which both agreed with a condition they first had to see each other in person. In essence, Han was more intrigued with bands Buie was listening to, with majority of those being black / death metal genres. With wealth exchange of information on bands and whatnot, the three started to jam heavier songs. Han attempted to further refine his drumming by trying out faster blast beats although his limited stamina inhibited him from fully mastering the technique. Han and Buie would later be introduced to Arif. Their meeting proved to be critical in later development of Dark Verministry as well as its subsequent demise during the latter half of their formation. They exchanged stories, mp3, DVDs; basically anything metal related would be their first and foremost cup of tea upon meeting each other. When Han felt that the name Abysmal Thoughts was no longer relevant (he also stated that the name would bring about disgraceful memory), they spent some time searching for better name that would reflect their overall mentality. Throughout this time, Han finally settled with Verministry; a name he thought as insinuation to some of Brunei wealthy ministries whom he believed were corrupt. Combined from 'vermin' and 'ministry', the name was initially seen as politically charged although Han and Buie later dismissed this as nothing more than oxymoron attempt to create something "insightful".
According to Buie,
Aslan of
NoirAtasya allegedly suggested the prefix 'Dark' be added on Verministry. Han personally asked Aslan whether or not this claim was true, to which Aslan denied involvement in creating said prefix. The band were quite ambitious though; they conducted interviews with some of underground's key figures such as
Izzard,
Adukasuria and members of
Seraphim to name a few. The latter which both Han and Buie voted as the best interview they had ever done, citing that each of them had endless sense of humor while at the same time maintaining their unparalleled opinions that were honest and just. Footage of these interviews would then be compiled, edited and pressed on consumer grade DVD-R with the title Metalitary 2008. The DVD was joint production between Dark Verministry, who by now had lost one of its longest running members Ail due to creative differences with Han, Misfits Entertainment House with Boy of
Victorious Rock Production lending his editing skills who was also featured as himself in the interview. Prior to Ail calling it quits from Dark Verministry, the trio, Han, Aerif and Ail did record a four - track demo, all of which were instrumental. The three were heavily influenced by
Draconaeon and thus aimed to follow in the footstep of their fellow countrymen. Although the band felt quite hesitant to consider Genesis of Evil as their official demo, nevertheless they enamored to the idea that Dark Verministry had indeed recorded something.
On the afternoon of July 24 2008, Han and Ail went to jam at Arif's place, first rehearsing their favorite songs such as
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Rivers of Blood, Rivers of Sorrow, A Kingdom Fallen among others before actually jamming their own songs which were largely created by Ail and Arif. The session was considered a crash course by the band; the were mostly unprepared and available instruments were meager both in terms of quality and performance. They somehow managed to perform three songs with the final being a keyboard driven melody that was done out of the blue by Ail. The band reacted differently to the songs that they had recorded through a consumer handheld camera, with audio extracted and fine - tuned by Han. According to Han, the raw, unedited stocks of the audio were extremely horrible that he had to spend the whole day trying to re-equalised each track in order to make each instrument more reasonably audible. Three songs showcased Ail's prowess as lead guitarist (who also filled in rhythm slot since Buie was unable to turn up), boasting melodic solos, rattling tempo changes and uneven song structure that were derivative from basic 4/4 signature. At least on one track, Arif did not fill his role as bassist since he was handling the camera. Han on the other hand was faced with greater difficulties; his naturally sweaty palms made it unreliable to acquire strong grip on his drum sticks and as a result, one of them was sent flying through the air. Arif had to pick up the stick and handed it over to Han, resuming their jam session. Lack of proper cymbals variety also contributed to monotony of Han drum patterns as he was only using a single pedal. Since Arif realised that their session was being recorded onto a camera, he fully utilised his bass playing skills especially those concerning improvised notes which for most part sounded way creative than what he used to play before. Nevertheless, the jam did not go without mistakes; there were times where Han would have difficult time catching up with Ail's abrupt tempo changes. This had contributed to Han playing out of tempo that plagued the first three songs on this demo. Given the fact that each of them did not know how to read music, they just played by ear. Most of them were untrained novice at that time. They had only but one thing; passion. Although sadly enough, the band soon disbanded due to growing personal issues among themselves, with Arif went on to form Ormentzera while Han and Buie moved forward as duo but not before changing their name again for one last time to Aglaophotis. Recently, rumor had it that Ail sold his Ibanez guitar along with amps and pedals through a friend for BND$850. Arif and Han remained on good terms while no contact had been established between Ail and Han. Everything went quiet for some time and Han had to finish his degree at a local university with Arif followed suit. The only person who remained consistent to this date was Han; he still holding on to the idea of creating a black metal band that as of now had yet to record any material due to restrictive schedule, lack of transportation and family commitment. This matter was addressed by Han and Buie when Aglaophotis were selected to appear in
Emperor Zine 2010, issue number 6 starting on page 24.
Tracklist:
1. Depressurized Insanity 4:41
2. The Nameless One 4:48
3. Memory Lost Forgotten 4:34
4. Roses That Bleed and the Angel Forlorn 1:45
Total time: 15:48
