Finnish ...And Oceans has always been a slight different band in the black metal scene. Be it because of the lyrics, the song titles or the album covers which made the band always a little bit more remarkable than many other bands. Now they recently released their new album "The Regeneration Itinerary" (read review here) which is much different from its previous albums. More dark, more aggressive, more disturbing. Reason enough to ask for the whys and hows - and my questions were answered via Zoom by Timo (git.), Pyri (bass) and Mathias (voc.). Enjoy reading

Michael

Hey, how are you doing?

All: Fine, very good, thank you!!

How dark and annoying was the time when you wrote and recorded your new album? It is full of anger and very dark….

M: Yeah, it actually turned out a little bit more extreme in some aspects. When we were in the studio, for example the sounds, when we did the guitars, we wanted to have them a little bit more aggressive because of the riffs that we have on this album. That also sort of contributed to the order of it and the tempo is higher in some songs because of the drums.

P: I think that we just wanted to do something else than we did on the previous two comeback albums. So this might be the case why it is a bit more dark and aggressive.

T: It was semi-intentional to do something a bit different but of course maintaining the basic sound of the basic sound of …And Oceans, try something different for once.

What I personally think is that these sorts of techno-samples are very disturbing and give your music a more futuristic touch than before. You don't want to make it too easy for the listener, am I right with that? When I drove to school and listened for it the first time, I just thought "what the fuck is that?".

P: That's the perfect expression now we have succeeded because we wanted to do something completely different this time.

T: Especially that "what the fuck"! Maybe not intentionally making it not easy but the "what the fuck" was at least one thing that we were trying to do. A few of those songs I think are in the same vein as on the previous albums. At least my songs are a bit the same way, maybe they have some different riffs but especially Anttis' songs are different from the last album with those techno elements.

M: I remember when we started writing the album, we sort of talked about how we allow ourselves to be a little bit more experimental on this album and to see what happens. We didn't know where it was gonna go. Of course at that point we decided to not choose the basic keyboard sound and not to do the classic black metal riffs, giving us the freedom to experiment a little bit more on this album.

T: For me at least at some point it felt like are these songs really going to work? But when we heard the final results we were really happy with those and that we kept on going to make those different tracks.

…and in "The Form And The Formless" you have this kind of Lola Runs sample. Did you have the movie in mind when you composed that song?

T: (Laughs) This is something our keyboard player has done. Somebody says that it has something to do with Nintendo, haha.

Not only the music but also both, the album and the song titles are quite challenging. What the hell is the regeneration itinerary?

M: (Laughs) How to say? It's a guide book. The whole album is a journey. It's a road with good and bad experiences on the way. This album sort of serves as a guide book for life or for the human that you have become today; be a good or a bad person. The album sort of explains the journey and hopefully you can learn something on the way. In a way it's all about enlightenment, it's a little bit like a diary.

Most of the titles sound quite gloomy and devastating like "The Fire In Which We Burn", "The Ways Of Sulphur" or "Towards The Absence Of Light". What is the main topic on the album?

M: There are not all good experiences on the way like it is the case in life. There are some really dark moments in there. The album before – "As In Garden So In Tombs" – had a kind of positive vibe in the end of the lyrics. It is more like discovering the pathways to different kinds of road to an end but here there's some really dark stuff going on.

Did you use some personal experiences for the lyrics or was it more abstract stuff you're writing about?

M: I never really wanted to write something that is really personal in a way but it just happened. That was what came out of my pen this time. Last year was a really hard year for a lot of people and that's probably why it sort of turned out in this kind of gloomy way.

The titles have become more and more cryptic on the last albums. What do you think when you look back to older songs like "I Wish I Was Pregnant" or "Intelligence Is Sexy"?

M: I should ask Kenny some time because he actually has written them for these songs (laughs). What was the idea? He never really told anything about the lyrics either. I've read a lot of interviews he did back that day and he always has been really cryptic about the lyrics.

T: I think he took the inspiration from those bands that do industrial and ambient. I remember they had those really weird lyrics and track names. Maybe one inspiration is coming from there.

So you don't feel a little bit ashamed because these little bit more foolish song titles when the band was in its infancy but you're all fine with them?

P: Definitely. I got very interested in the band back in the day mainly because of the titles. All the other symphonic black metal bands were singing about these so-called "normal" subjects in that genre and then …And Oceans had songs like "I Wish I Was Pregnant". I was like "what is this" and their music is really symphonic black metal and that really got me interested in the whole thing. I am super proud to be a part of that nowadays because it's something else than the other bands are doing.

T: For me, back in the 90s when we had those first tours and gigs, maybe I was a bit, well not really ashamed but when I think now it was that era of …And Oceans that we are proud of now with what we did and we are not ashamed at all of that era.

Is intelligence still sexy in 2025 or is it quite old-fashioned these days when you look at the world today?

T: Haha, maybe.

P: It would need a lot more intelligence nowadays when you for example look at this kind of clown show.

Apropos intelligence – what do you think about AI in music / arts?

M: Oh well, that's a hard question. It's some kind of double edged sword. The whole AI thing is so much in its infancy still that we haven't learned how to use it properly. At some point you can start integrating it into music. Not writing 100% with AI and doing all the covers but I think at some point it can actually turn into an available tool to for example get new ideas. But I think it's still way too early to be the judge of what it's gonna be like.

The cover of "The Regeneration Itinerary" and its predecessor "As In Gardens, So In Tombs" look very beautiful but also a little bit artificial – did you have some help from a non-human friend?

M: Not really. Adrian just spends a lot of time doing these things. It's incredible the amount of work he puts into it. So there's no AI used on the albums.

What's the meaning behind this cover?

M: With all the covers Adrian has done for us, we send him lyrics first and the album title. Then he starts implementing those elements from the lyrics into it and sort of interpreting what's going on in a very artistic and avantgardish way. But still it's really cool because you can see the things from the lyrics, you can see in those details a lot of things we're singing about coming to life. On this album everything goes really hand in hand, the music, the lyrics and the cover, everything. It's all in the same concept and really describing.

In contrast to that, the cover of "A.M.G.O.D." and "Cypher" aren't the best and it is hard to get the albums, digitally they even aren't available on your Bandcamp site. Do you plan any re-releases and digital downloads for them?

T: They should be available as digital downloads now. I think Century Media put them online a few months ago. They have this price cutter series or something like that where you get them for about six Euros.

I wanted to see you this March in Oberhausen together with Ancient Rites and many more – unfortunately Heretic March was cancelled. What are the upcoming tour plans?

M: There are plans about it. We have a few album release shows in Finland and Finnish festivals, also PartySan in August and a lot of plans for the end of the year.

The final words belong to you!

M: Well, the classic answer (laughs). Keep your eyes open, there's a lot of new music coming and there are also a lot of shows coming up. Hope to see you out on the road somewhere this year!

P: The new album is coming out in May with some singles coming out so go check this out!