Interview with black death metal band from Sweden - VANHELGD.
Answered Mattias Frisk (guitars, vocals), thank you!
Recenze/review - VANHELGD - Atropos Doctrina (2024):
Ave VANHELGD! It's been a while since your label Dark Descent Records sent me an album to review. And immediately with "Atropos Doctrina" you got to the imaginary top of my personal black death metal chart. The first time I encountered the new album was in the cold weather, when it got very cold. It was very pleasant for me to just listen, read and let the time pass. How was the album made and how do you think it differs from the previous album "Deimos Sanktuarium"?
It took a while to make since the pandemic got us out of track. We were back in writing mood after a small tour supporting At the gates when Sweden shut down and we were unable to rehearse on a regular basis. When we finally started to rehearse again we lost interest in the few songs we had done so far so we started up again with the demos I made during the pandemic. I think it took almost 2 years to write the album, rehearse everything and prepare for the studio . We entered Endarker Studios in the spring of 2023 and it was mixed and mastered sometime around august.
I think it's a bit different from Deimos Sanktuarium. First of all it's overall a bit faster and has little more energy. It's also less complicated when it comes to arrangement and song structures. Ok “Atropos Hymnarium” and “I ovigd jord” could fit Deimos Sanktuarium as well but the rest of the songs on ATROPOS DOCTRINA are a bit more straightforward in my opinion.We also spent a lot more time fine tuning this album. Westman was also quite new in the band when recording DS so I guess he feels more comfortable with AD.
In hindsight I kind of overlooked the back-up vocals for AD, it would have been nice with som more parts from Jimmy.
Let's go back in history a bit. VANHELGD was formed in 2007. The band is composed of all experienced musicians. Nowadays it's not easy to start again. How did you get together in the first place and why did you choose black death metal?
Me and Jimmy ( guitars) were in a band called Ceremonial Execution + me and Björn ( drums 2007- 2016) were in another band called the Jam Session. we shared rehearsal space and both bands were put on ice about the the same time so Björn got the idea for us three to start a new band. We wanted things to be simple so we decided that I shpuld do the vocals and guitars ( only did back-ups previous to Vanhelgd) After a few months or so Viktor joined ( bass 2008-2013) It’s so many years ago now but we see ourselves as a new band still but it is the longest I’ve been in the same band!
Jonas, bass ( ex thy Primordial, Retaliation, King of asgard) joined in 2013 and Westman, drums ( ex Throne of Heresy , King of Asgard) joined in 2016. I guess we always had some kind of nordic misery, strokes of black metal and folk songs in our songs but it has become more apparent on the last albums. When we started the band was more punkish and had a lot more Autopsy and old school death metal stuff going on. We have since then evolved more into a slower form leaning more towards hopelessness and misery rather than gore, zombies and beer. I think that a lot of songs from our first two album still works but I’m also glad we took the steps in this direction since the other way would have been a dead end for me creatively.
The new stuff has exactly the kind of cool, clear sound that I like a lot. It's signed by the master Magnus "Devo" Andersson. We all know his work for MARDUK and many other bands. I'm curious to know how you guys worked together and why him? With what feelings did you leave the studio?
Jonas and Westman had recorded there many times before so it was not hard to convince me and Jimmy to try it out. Devo was very easy to work with and had a lot of respect for our DNA as a band but still gave a lot of great input. When I leave the studio I’m always alternating between saying that our albums are just strange and not very good and that we did a hell of an album, the truth is often that we did ok :-)
When I look at the cover, it reminds me terribly of a scene from an old mural, from the catacombs. Beautiful work. Who's the artist and why did you choose this particular motif?
I work part time as an illustrator, a career I started making covers and merch for the bands I was in and for my friends' bands. So I have made all the merch and all the album covers for Vanhelgd. Atropos is the oldest of the three fates, the Moirai, in Greek mythology. She is the one cutting the thread of life after her sisters spun and measured it. She is the metaphor of death. Her attributes are among others the scissors and the veil.
The lyrics on your records are about death, anti-religion, pain. You're not afraid of horror themes either. Where do you get inspiration for them? And what are the lyrics on the new album about?
I get inspiration from different sources, mostly art and literature but also things in my personal life and things happening in these turbulent times. The lyrics on ATROPOS DOCTRINA are about misery, defeat, rebellion, suffering, war, death and famine.
VANHELGD are a band that when I listen to them, I immediately know who they are. You have your own unmistakable signature, expression. A strange dark mood that has a very urgent effect on me. How do you explain that? Do you have a secret formula, a recipe? How do you create new material? I'm talking about the process now.
We focus a lot on the expression, we don't care much about the technical aspect, riffs can be really boring and simple, the important thing is that it fits the song and has the right feeling. We work a lot in the rehearsal space trying out different aspects and perspectives on the riffs such as dynamics, tempo, drum beats. We re-arrange, play a black metal riff as if it would be a doom riff and stuff like and trust our gut-feeling. It is a frustrating slow process but very rewarding when you solve the puzzle. We can wrestle with a song for hours at a rehearsal and be about to turn the amps off, put the drumsticks down and go home when someone gets an idea or a perspective on the song or a riff that turns things around and gets everybody excited again. There are a lot of “what would happen if…” and “ can we try to...” followed by “ no, but maybe if we try to…” at our rehearsals. So writing songs is a very organic and kind of an investigative process for us and at the same time an uphill battle.
Does Swedish nature influence you in any way? Every time I hear a band from your country, I think that you can put such a special mood, melancholy in your songs. A lot of times I would take the album to the woods near my home, just outside the city, and it felt like I was somewhere up north.
Yes I think it does, the nordic melancholy that comes with the short summers and nature have a more or less subconscious impact on the song writing. The nordic folk music often has this vibe too and we have some influences from that in our melodies. The song “I ovigd jord” ( in unconsecrated soil ) have a lot to do with nature, the elements, man made borders, ideology and religion. Both when we wrote and recorded the album I went on long walks listening to the demos to figure out the vocals and later to listen to the mixes. I often did this in the evenings and the mixes were during the late summer period so for me personally the album is very associated with the landscape and the summer evening light.
According to wikipedia, Sweden has 10.59 million inhabitants. The Czech Republic has ten. We have a lot of metal bands here too, but definitely not as many as you. Does that mean you have a musician in every family? I wonder why you have so many bands? And I'm not talking about the mainstream, I'm talking about the underground. How do you explain that?
I think it has to do with that there were a lot of cheap or free rehearsal places ( often with instruments to loan) in Sweden for kids back in the 80ies and 90ies .You just had to start a study circle and report to one of the many public education organizations that got money from the state. There were also a lot of shows at youth centers in every town. So many kids started bands those days, first metal and punk bands in the 80ies, then a lot of death metal, black metal and hardcore bands in the 90ies.
How do you perceive your scene? Gigs, fans, labels? There are quite a lot of gigs here, but only some of them are well attended. Plus, it seems to me that young fans are already listening to something a bit different.
I think we don't get as many touring acts here as in the rest of europe since we are a bit off geographically. There are quite a lot of metal gigs going on but I live in a small village so I have to travel to see shows. We don´t do many shows a year so we are not really well connected to the scene in that way but we have contact with some bands and listeners of course.
Personally, I find "Atropos Doctrina" to be such a perfectly polished stylistic gem, but it can also appeal to fans outside of black death metal. The album is raw, but it also has a lot of memorable melodies. Where do you want to take the band? What is your goal? Someone is attracted by big festivals, someone wants a famous label. What are your dreams?
Personally, I just want to continue to write music and record albums. It is nice to do shows and we are happy to play when it works but the goal is not to tour a lot and so on, probably because it takes so much energy to plan and book shows and tours on our own. My goal for Vanhelgd is to keep evolving and make a superb death metal album.
How did you get into music in the first place? Who was your role model? First gig? First gig as a musician? How about some wild experiences, readers are always interested in that:)).
Oh I don't have many wild experiences since I've never done many tours and my memory always fails me so I´m the worst at talking about the past. As for role models, I would say Entombed and Paradise Lost since they were the bands that got me into death metal in the early 90-ies, soon followed by At the Gates, Death and Edge of Sanity
Me and Jimmy and Viktor did our first gig as a musicians with our metal band BLUMP in the afternoon at a fair in our hometown back in 94. We played a 15-20 min set of bad covers and one or two original songs. We started out together with Hans on drums. I remember drawing Obituary influenced death metal logos for the band that I wanted to be named Sauron but the first songs we did were punk songs and we soon got Stefan on vocals and became a metal band. Back then the Hardcore scene was huge in Sweden and many of our friends were involved in one way or another. I wasn't a big fan, I was into heavy metal, black and death. I always wanted to play death metal and did some rehearsals in two or three local death/black metal bands during the 90-ies but there were only 2-3 songs made with each of them before the interest faded… so I didn´t play extreme music for real until I joined a grind/hc/punk/doom band called THE JAM SESSION in 1998 or 1999 where Björn was playing the drums. We did a lot of strange songs and drunk shows for a couple of years, rehearsing two times a week and drinking together as often as we could and got to do shows together with bands like The Locust, Switchblade, Trapdoor Fucking Exit, From Ashes Rise, Catharsis and Totalt Jävla Mörker. It was a great time. When BLUMP split up in 2001 after releasing 5 demos me and Jimmy formed CEREMONIAL EXECUTION together with Robert from THE JAM SESSION on vocals. We got David on drums and Tommy followed by Jonas on Bass for a while and after him Björn Ahlqvist joined. We played some kind of US-influenced death metal with a bit of an old-school vibe and released 1 demo, a split 7, an album and another 7” before splitting up in 2007 at the same time as THE JAM SESSION was put on ice. We started Vanhelgd in 2007 and our first gig was probably the one we did in a non-offical club in our hometown together with King of Asgard ( where Jonas were playing bass) back in 2008.
I'd be interested in your relationship to music. What does it mean to you? Is it a hobby? A lifestyle?
It's a part of my daily life for sure and specifically it's about a passion for death metal. I´ve been in bands since 1994 and rehearsed weekly or monthly and in some periods even up to 4 times a week since then. Even though I find it hard to call myself a musician. I realized that I'm only interested in playing music if I can write my own stuff and that my technical skills are poor for playing guitar for so long, I only play guitar at home when trying to figure out an old song that we will start playing again or when writing. I wish I've spent more time practicing but don't find it interesting. I would never join a band without being part of the writing process and I can't understand why anyone would be in a cover band. I also realized that I can't do things half hearted when it comes to being creative. I love being in the rehearsal space with the others creating songs together and releasing the aggression you build up in your everyday life. It's been about a year now since ATROPOS DOCTRINA was finished and as much as I want to play those songs live I also want to start making new material. So I guess it's all about passion for me.
What is VANHELGD going to do in the near future?
We are having a release show at Palatset in Linköping on the 16th of august, then we are booked for Malmö Massacre at the end of august and a show in Umeå in october. I hope we can do some shows and festivals in Europe in 2025.
Thank you very much for the interview, I appreciate it. I guess you can guess what I'm going to do. Yeah, I'm going to go out into the woods and take your new book "Atropos Doctrina" with me.
Thank you! Sounds like a good plan!
Recenze/review - VANHELGD - Atropos Doctrina (2024):
https://www.ddmsuo.eu (European webstore)
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