Aegrus - Finland's most impactful black metal band as of late and true champions of the Satanic way are so much more than your traditional or typical "Satanic" black metal outfit. For Aegrus, Satanism and Devil worship are a substantial part of life; one for which they've sold theirs souls… And the music created by what I consider to be the cream of the contemporary Finnish black metal circuit is of the most freeing and transcendental consortium. Self-development and the channeling of outer forces through self being the main catalysts to their scene-dominating scourge. During my latest interview, Darkseer Inculta and Lux Tenebris give us some insight into their relationship with Satan/Lucifer, their creative process, thoughts on the current & past scenes and of course their album, "Invoking The Abysmal Night".

Jeger

Aegrus operates with a full lineup of musicians as opposed to the billions of soloists and duos out there in the black metal world. Consequently, I feel like it's important for the band dynamic to be restored within the genre. Furthermore, I feel like anything that challenges a musician gets tossed out the window these days. What has been the value of the band dynamic for Aegrus?

Darkseer Inculta: "In Manus Satanas" was the first release we did as a whole band together. Until that, we operated as a duo excluding a couple of demos and one EP in the beginning. That worked fine in itself, but since we play all rehearsals and live shows with a complete line-up, there wasn't really a reason to not do the same with recordings, as well. In my opinion, it has brought more dynamic and variation to our sound & style. Serpentifer is also a much more talented and able drummer than me.

Your latest album "Invoking The Abysmal Night" is a bit more experimental compared to 2019's "In Manus Satanas", particularly with tracks like 'Nocturnal Rites Of Faust' that crossover genres. What inspired you to take more risks with this one?

Lux Tenebris: There's more variation in that album than ever before, but everything came naturally or transcendentally if you will. I always reflect inner and outer influences to my music, be it my inner emotion, the twilight breath of Satan or just adaptation of something musically impressive that got me under its spell.

When it comes to 'Nocturnal Rites Of Faust', I listen to other music genres than black metal too, so my musical influences come from everywhere and can show up emanating like this.

Also, clean guitars and solos aren't exactly new territory for us since we have played those parts many times before, but maybe it stands out more discernibly this time.

What was the songwriting/recording process like for the new material?

DsI: There wasn't anything different this time around compared to any of our past releases. Lux Tenebris composed all the music while I wrote most of the lyrics. That has been our way of creating music since the very beginning. Final arrangements are made in our rehearsal chamber as a whole band together when the songs are finished. We have always recorded everything by ourselves. That way we can work at our own pace without any hurry or pressure.

What are your plans as far as live rituals following its release?

LT: Week after the release of "Invoking The Abysmal Night" we had a release event in Finland, in which Ruttokosmos, Vornat and AntimateriA (in which I play too) participated. All bands are from the same region as we are originally, so that was a special event worth checking. Next spring, our first Central European show is to happen in Switzerland in Black Hole Fest V with Gorgoroth and Sargeist among others. It would be great to add some other gigs along that trip, for example in Germany, in Belgium or in France but let's see what happens.

As with most genuine black metal bands, Aegrus' creative well runs deep and beyond the musical aspect of things. It's said that self-development and transcendental knowledge are driving forces behind the band as a whole. Are these disciplines and epiphanies sought out through the practice of Satanism?

LT: Satanism and Devil worship are the foundation of my life, my philosophy and naturally Aegrus is deeply bound with my life. The things mentioned by you are reflecting my goals in life in which self development is the constant driving force and transcendental knowledge is the higher state to aim for.

DsI: Partly yes, partly no. Although Satanism, or rather I'd say Devil worship is a huge part of me, some of it was already rooted in me back in the day before I could even identify what all of this really is and what it means. Over the years I've developed my own interpretations of what that whole concept is for me personally and how it is affecting my life and the way I feel/see things. When it comes to self-development, that should be a part of every living creature in general. To learn, to evolve. Not just being limited to being a part of Satanism.

The lines between what separate Satanism and Luciferianism seem to be converging within the realm of black metal. These days, more and more artists are creating material that's inspired by the illumination of Lucifer as opposed to how the genre was originally formed with Devil worship being the main influence. How important has Lucifer been to the band's creative process?

LT: As a spiritual person I see Satan and Lucifer as the same entity, only looked at from a different point of view. Devil worship goes hand in hand with Luciferian illumination and the force called Satan/Lucifer is the real God: keeper of real knowledge hidden behind the curtains of darkness only available for those who have the will strong enough to discover it. I'm lucky enough that I've found inner peace with HIM and I strongly feel we are now living in symbiosis. I am gaining unspeakable things from HIM and giving no less than my soul for exchange. So naturally, Lucifer plays a big part in our lives, and that being said, in the creativeness of the band.

DsI: As Lux Tenebris already described it quite comprehensively, Satan/Lucifer are basically the same coin with different sides. Each of them represents different aspects of Devil worship to me as the other is more related to primal instincts, feelings etc. while the other being more involved with spiritual ways, knowledge, self-development and so on. Can't really put everything into words, but I think you get the idea.

Has any of Aegrus' music been inspired by ritual?

LT: Not by ritual since ritual has all an all different character than composing songs, but definitely inspired by constant outer powers filtered through my body.

I was once told in one of my interviews that Satanism cannot be commercialized. There was sound reasoning behind this, but it seems like that's exactly what some mainstream bands are doing - cashing in on Satanic principles and concepts. Take away the Satanic elements of some of these bands and they would have little else to sell. How do you feel about the use of Satanic imagery, concepts and philosophies as a means to sell records?

DsI: This is one of those topics that I don't really care about. I guess if money and fame comes through your own creations, and music you have poured into your heart & soul, blood & sweat, then it comes. But for us, fame and fat wallets have never been the goal. As cliche as it sounds, first and foremost, we do this for ourselves. We have sold our souls to Satan…

LT: Satanism was already commercialized by LaVey during the 60's, so it has been done long time ago. If someone does this kind of successful music with his whole heart, I guess then it's fine, but of course there are lots of these trolls and posers who are making "Satanic" music only because they get money from it and it's cool to be evil in the eyes of the majority. I generally tend to ignore those kinds of people since they are too shallow and lack the perspective that I seek from the others who I'm voluntarily dealing with. Honest and genuine persons are the ones who earn my time and respect, no matter the subject. Life is too short to care about everyone or everything.

Aegrus formed years after the "Dark War" that took place in the 90's between Finnish and Norwegian hordes. From your perspective, is that competitive flair still alive between the two scenes?

DsI: No. Such thing doesn't exist anymore, or at least I'm unaware if it does. Not that I really even care about that nonsense.

LT: It was around 30 years ago, so that era has been buried in the past. I think it was mainly VV who sent death threat letters to Mika Luttinen from Impaled Nazarene. Actually Mika with his brother Kimmo got tens of the same kinds of letters from France too. Namely, it was Vlad Tepes guys along with Mutiilation who sent letters to them and also to Osmose they did send dead rats among others, haha. But that's part of the juvenile past of Black Metal and today Finnish and Norwegian Black Metal scenes are really vital on their own.

What's the most valuable thing you've learned about yourself through self-development and how have you applied it to Aegrus?

DsI: That's quite hard to answer because I believe many things happen naturally and unconsciously without thinking about it too much. These are much easier to notice in real life situations rather than how I make music, but at least our lyrics have become more thoughtful and deep throughout the years.

LT: I can't say only one thing, it's too hard. The process is going on all the time. At this moment I feel I am the best version of me. I feel inner peace, I am stronger than ever and I feel I've gained deeper understanding of the essence of this absolute. Time will tell how it translates into Aegrus.

Do you have a message for the horde?

DsI: Check our new album when it comes out and possible gigs/other related news of Aegrus. Hail Satan!

LT: Open your mind and soul for the obscure. That way you can reach to the next level and beyond.

Belgian newcomers Schizophrenia released their first EP "Voices" about two years ago and were quite a surprise in the death/thrash scene. Now they finally have released their first full-length album "Recollections Of The Insane" and got much more brutal on this output. I had the chance to do a Skype interview (sorry that it took so long!) with Ricky (voc/bass), Romeo (git) and Marty (git) so that you have the chance to get to know this very likable band.

Michael

First of all, can you introduce the band a little bit to our readers?

Ricky: So, I am Ricky on the vocals and next to me are Marty and Romeo on the guitars. Our drummer is not here. Our band started in late 2016 / early 2017. Me and Romeo played in a band before but it disbanded and we thought of doing something different, to bring the music to another level. We wanted to go a bit more extreme and at that time we were living together and shared an apartment so we had a lot of time to jam together. Then we asked Marty and Lorenzo to join the band and they immediately accepted. Romeo and I had already written the main structure of the songs that are on the EP (Voices; M.). So we just put the pieces together and did some arrangements and stuff like that and recorded the EP at the end of 2018. It was released in January 2020 because we had a lot of troubles with it (laughs).

You released your first full-length album "Recollections Of The Insane" some time ago. Were you a little bit nervous about the feedback from the fans?

Ricky: Not very nervous, I was really excited actually.

Romeo: We're all very happy that we finally share what we've been working on so hard. We are all very satisfied with the record and with the road we've taken. On this album the death metal element is more dominant and for the EP we were very much like "okay, we're gonna do it this way, like thrash-death" and for this album we didn't have any boundaries. We just came up with a lot of ideas, we kept what we liked and it the direction was very natural and way more extreme and we just liked it. We thought it was cool and we played with a lot of different things which was a lot of fun to do. We're really happy with the result.

Marty: I think when you look at it a little bit more specifically, a lot of the songs have more melody in them than the songs on Voices and we also experimented with the way we composed them. We tried to kind of break away from the usual structures we have, like we didn't want to have a formula, maybe it's a harsh word for that, but we tried to take a different approach on composition and melody in general.

Ricky: Yeah, I think for Voices we had a sort of formula for the song structures. I mean, it definitely worked because we had great feedback for it. But we didn't wanna do a "Voices II". So we went for that different approach and of course it's different and it was very challenging but we didn't have any boundaries, we just went for it.

What do you think is the biggest difference to the EP "Voices"?

Ricky: I think we gave the music a more extreme touch. The EP had more thrash influences and the album has more death metal influences but still has elements of both.

Having a look at the titles and the cover, I have the impression that you deal with some old mystic stuff. Am I right about that?

Ricky: The album cover is about that and it really pictures what the song 'Monolith' is about. It's kind of metaphoric. But if you read the lyrics, it is about that statue that evokes all evil and madness and there is someone kneeling in front of it in sign of submission. It's dealing with a lot of struggles and the album title Recollections Of The Insane is like putting someone in front of something bigger than him. It's very hard to explain but it's a bit like facing all these catastrophic and bad things. I think the album has different shades like each song has its own personality. It has some dramatic moments and some others that are more brutal and gory. I thought that the statue itself is a very powerful image – it's a bit eerie and very mysterious.

Yes, it's a very good one. Who painted it?

Ricky: It's Khaos Diktator Design – Stefan (Todorovic; M.) from Serbia and he is also the singer in Gorgoroth. It was a pleasure working with him because he is a really cool guy. It was great working with him because we came up with a first idea but we gave him total freedom so he added a lot of his own ideas and he is really super skilled and knows a lot of stuff.

Romeo: Yeah, he really knows what he's been talking about and it was very interesting to work with him. What I really liked working with him was that he really knows his art. The way he combines certain cultures or artistic styles; I thought it was very interesting.

After the success of "Voices", I guess that there would have been a lot of labels who had liked to sign you (at least Andreas from Metal Blade told me so). Why do you still release your albums on your own?

Ricky: We had a lot of offers and Metal Blade is one of the labels that sent us one. The thing is that for Voices we tried it ourselves and it went really well and so we thought like "okay we can look for options like other labels" and they made their offers and they were very good but we decided to take the risk and do it again on our own. But we licensed some labels to sell our records like Redefining Darkness is doing the distribution in North America and we also sold some copies to Metal Blade, Napalm Records and Workrecords in Japan and Brazil as well, so eventually we got our distribution taken care of.

Which bands are the most influential ones for Schizophrenia?

All: That's a hard question!

Ricky: Well, for me as a singer, it's Slayer, Morbid Angel and Obituary. They were very big influences at least for this record. I took a lot from that.

Romeo: Well, for me it's Dissection but it's too much to mention. We take the influence from everything we like and we don't just pick three bands where we say that we have to sound that way. We love so much music, even outside the metal genre, Marty listens to some fusion stuff as well and we try to incorporate everything and when we write it comes out in our own way.

Marty: I think in a general sense you could say that the old-school death and some of the more heavy thrash metal bands are big influences but I also think that we have an influence on each other and when we meet to write we're kind of complementary to each other. We just created together in the end and not think about influences that much. It's what comes up in us and Romeo comes up with an idea and I have something that might fit with it and we just take it from there.

Until 2016 you called the band Hämmerhead. Why did you change into Schizophrenia? Was it because you wanted to create some heavier music?

Ricky: It was another band. It was active since 2010, I guess and then me and Romeo joined the band in 2015 and we stayed in for 1 ½ years but we never recorded anything with it. They had a couple of EPs already and we just did live shows. Then the drummer joined Carnation and the other guitarist just quite everything. So Romeo and I decided to come up with another name and new music. I mean, we didn't keep anything of that band so it's a totally different band.

What are the upcoming plans for Schizophrenia?

Ricky: There will be some shows between April until October or November in Europe.

Finally, a tough question – what are your personal top 5 records you don't want to live without?

Romeo: Oh man, this is too hard for me. Definitely "Covenant" by Morbid Angel, that's one of my favorites. "Screaming For Vengeance" by Judas Priest, "Storm Of The Light's Bane" by Dissection….I can't choose, I have so many albums rushing through my head.

Ricky: I'd say "The Number Of The Beast" by Maiden, "Live And Dangerous" by Thin Lizzy, "Reign In Blood", "Force It" by UFO and "Defenders Of The Faith" by Judas Priest.

Marty: So I had more time to think! "Screaming For Vengeance" has been one of my all-time favorites, "Human" by Death is also definitely in there, it's not metal but "Erotic Cakes" by Guthrie Govan is also just so good (laughter), then "In Rock" by Deep Purple, also a fantastic record and "Perpetual Burn" by Jason Becker.

Do you have some final words for the MetalBite community?

Ricky: I hope you will like our record and come to see us whenever we are in Germany or wherever. We're really looking forward to meeting all our fans at a live show and thanks to you for taking the time to do this – it was a lot of fun!

Vancouver's Tribunal have bewitched fans of classic doom across the world in 2023, with their fantastic 20 Buck Spin debut full-length "The Weight Of Remembrance". MetalBite caught up with Soren and Etienne from the band over a transatlantic Zoom call to hear more about the recording process, plans for the future, and how the band failed to turn into Wintersun, despite the seemingly never-ending pandemic. Although the pair may have been nursing hangovers from the previous night's Death To All / Suffocation show, they were thoughtful and engaging company throughout, and this writer's fingers are crossed that they do indeed eventually make it to Europe to treat fans across the pond to their brand of rich, elegant heavy metal.

Benjamin

Although Tribunal appears to have emerged from nowhere, 2023 is far from the beginning of the story, with the band having been playing together since 2018. How did you develop from that point to releasing your debut this year?

Soren: Yeah, it has been quite a while now, even if the pandemic creates a strange blurry period in the middle. We met each other when we had just moved to the city, and we met and became friends, and through talking, it became clear that we had both had projects in the past, and we were both interested in getting something together. So, we ended up talking about doing something in the doom realm – dark and slow were the main adjectives that we tried to use for framing our early jams. We started jamming together, the two of us in the summer of 2018, so quite a while ago now.

Etienne: I remember you were the one certainly pushing it more initially; I think you were very excited to get back to making music. I remember feeling a bit uncertain after my last project had fizzled out, and for our first session you brought over the riffs that became 'Initiation'. I remember playing those through in the space and feeling surprised by how excited I was, at how things were coming together, and things just snowballed from there. We put together an initial line-up and played some shows that had a pretty decent reception, and then during the pandemic some things happened, the band became just the two of us again, and we buckled down and put together the record. It took quite a lot of time between recording it, producing it, and finding the right partner to release it, but I think it ended up feeling really worthwhile.

Soren: Yeah, definitely. We took quite a long time with the recording process, 'cos these songs had been written for a number of years. We were playing most of the songs off the record live before the pandemic.

Etienne: We had 'Initiation', we had 'Apathy's Teeth', and we had the earlier version of 'Without Answer', although we threw out all of the lyrics and the melodies, and rewrote the vocals for it, I think right before we went in to record it.

Soren: These songs have been around for a while, we've been playing them for a while, but we recorded the entire thing ourselves, which is something that neither of us had done before. Everything except for the drums. And I think, when you have an infinite span of time as we had in the pandemic, and you're learning a new skill, we stretched it out and really took our time with the recording process. So, it's very exciting to finally have people hearing these songs that have become very, very familiar to us over a number of years. It's exciting to hear the fresh reception from people hearing it for the very first time.

Your sound doesn't follow any trends. Do you think that operating in relative isolation in Vancouver has helped you develop something more timeless, not rooted in a specific era?

Soren: I think that it's helpful, in that I don't feel there are many bands around here or in the scene that are doing things that are exactly on the same pathway, so I think in that way you're less likely to get consciously influenced by what's popular. Maybe that leads us to be more independent with our sound, but we are drawing heavily from the groundwork that has been laid since the nineties, but it's hard to say how it affects our sound. What do you think?

Etienne: Honestly, the band and the record very much came from a genuine place of just wanting to make music and mess around a little bit. I don't think, certainly when we started, we even thought we were going to make a record, let alone get picked up by a label, or start to get a response around the world like what's happening, so maybe if we'd have had that goal in mind in the beginning, we might have thought more about what's cool, what's happening, how can we set this up to get traction? But we really weren't thinking about that at all, it was just "what do we enjoy doing? How do we get the intersection between what music you enjoy making, what I enjoy making, what the skills we have naturally lend themselves to?", and it just naturally arose itself from that.

Soren: It felt very contained, just within our own musical tastes and interests. I'd been interested in making this kind of music for a long while, and so I had ideas in my head, but I was not so much influenced by ideas of what would kick off right now. At least where we are now, it's more stoner-doom that is the more popular style, and we're an outlier. But that can also give us an advantage in the local scene, in that we've gotten to play some exciting shows, where people have remembered us if they're into this particular style of doom, because they don't hear it around very much, so I think that has been an advantage for us.

What were your expectations when you sent your demo to 20 Buck Spin?

Etienne: No, no real expectations there! The demo policy on their website says that they love when people reach out to them, but they get so many demos that you're not going to hear back unless they want to work with you. We sent a lot of demo submissions to a lot of different labels, just because I'd had an experience of doing a record in the past where you put in all the work to record it, and then you just put it out there, and maybe nothing happens. And so, after the incredibly long and very challenging experience of making the record, we said that we really want to put the work in to giving it the best shot possible. So, we went through every band we thought was comparable, or potentially comparable to us: who was their label? We sent a ton of emails, the vast majority of which, understandably, they never got back to, because again, there are so many bands doing that, but… you only need one hit! And, I honestly wouldn't have expected 20 Buck Spin. I dig them a lot, I dig a lot of the cool underground death metal stuff they're doing, but they do a lot of different things. And Dave (Adelson, label owner) is keen to pick up bands who might not have much of a following, but who might have potential, and to help them to reach that potential. So, I think that was probably the coolest moment in our band, when we got that email back less than a month after we sent it. He emailed us back to say 'Hey, I finally managed to hear the record, would you be interested in working together for a release?'. We were both like:

Both: 'WHAT?!!!!'

Soren: Yeah, that was really exciting. I've been a fan of the label for quite a while - I got my partner a shirt with their logo for Christmas a few years ago - so it was very, very exciting for us. Certainly not one I really would've expected. I know that 20 Buck Spin do try to have a diverse roster, and not to just be a genre-specific label. I think he's quite resistant to being pigeonholed to only being a death metal label, or only doing this other style, so once we did get the offer, I feel like you can look back to their catalogue and see 'that makes sense'. But it was very, very flattering for us and very exciting, and it ended up feeling very satisfying. We didn't know anybody there – it was purely sending our record off into the ether and seeing what happened.

It's notable that there's no possibility of interference in terms of your sound. You've made the record, it's totally your own conception, the artwork is produced by Soren, and there's no one asking you to sound a bit more like someone else. Is that level of control something that you want to retain in the future?

Soren: Yeah, I think I would remain open to input, but I don't think the label has any desire to control the work we're doing. They're there to support us, but that doesn't seem to be an attitude that I've gotten from them.

One of the things that excited this writer about Tribunal, was how holistic the whole package is, from the name, to the symbolism of the artwork, through to the name of the band. There is a clear and consistent thread, which I think is often the case for some of the best bands. Was there a lot of thought that went into making Tribunal work cohesively?

Etienne: Yeah! I'm really glad to hear you say that, because I think that's something we really try to do. I think that bands are a work of art, in and of themselves. You can make a record, and that's art in a way, and you can make cover art, and you do all the different pieces, but I think each piece is a smaller part of a greater whole that is a single work. Honestly, I think Soren has a very strong aesthetic sensibility in terms of coordinating our visual art and colour schemes and whatnot, so…

Soren: Yeah - I really love when a band has a unified aesthetic – that's something that we certainly talked about, something that we try to be consistent in. We don't want to be policing ourselves in terms of presenting completely seriously all the time, and calling our shows 'rituals', and that kind of thing, but I've always really liked that about a band, and when there's an album that I like, I find I have a very strong aesthetic sense. When I think of the album, I think of the imagery of the art, and I think of the place that it transports me to, and the images that it brings up in my mind, so I really value having the framework for that in our own project. And I feel I've always had a very clear visual image of what our music feels like and what it should look like, so I was trying to bring that into how we present.

Lyrically, the album seems to be about 'Judgement' as a concept, and the moral and ethical challenges of life. Is that correct?

Soren: Those are themes that both of us are very interested in exploring, and I think in our future work we're going to get into those things more explicitly, but they are certainly themes that were on our mind when we were writing this, and the record ended up being a bit more introspective than that, but the idea of 'judgement': at least in my own lyrics, it feels like it comes through how you internalize judgement from external sources, and how that affects you, and then your own internal judgments of yourself and your worth, and if what you are doing is right. Yeah – those are certainly things that figure into the broader concept of the band. How much they're reflected in these specific lyrics…

Etienne: I think 'Apathy's Keep' probably has the most of that. The lyrics I wrote for this record were, as Soren said, much more introspective, and I think a little bit more self-obsessed maybe, about my own experiences and changes over time. You get that in 'The Weight Of Remembrance' and the reminiscence of times past, but I do think for our next record, we're looking at a concept that is much more moral and judgement-based. And I think we're excited about that.

Soren: Yeah, I think that some of the nature of this record was that the tracks were something that emerged basically, without the idea necessarily of an album at the end. With both of us keen on having a creative outlet, some more personal reflections work their way into the songs just by virtue of the reason that we were writing them at the time.

I imagined that the title 'The Weight Of Remembrance' is about the oppressive nature of the memory of things that have happened in the past. Is that the case?

Etienne: I think you can take it however you want to. Like any good album title, it's meant to be interpreted. I definitely do think it does have a nostalgic edge to it - it's missing the way things used to be, missing opportunities, or "could things have been different if I had made different choices?", or "the way things changed, was that always going to be inevitable?".

Soren: I think that both of our songs reflect a bit differently, just because of our different experiences. Some of the things I was reflecting on a lot throughout were, and it's reflected through the title – we're remembering past values, and past ideas of what you thought it meant to be to be a good person in the world, and what it means to act responsibly, and be the best version of yourself, and how those things have changed over time, and the angst that can come with that. Agonising over whether you've made the right decisions, and whether your views have changed too much.

You're thoughtful people generally. Is that a natural part of playing the kind of slow, reflective music that you do? Do those two things go hand in hand?

Soren: We are very over-thinking people! So maybe this ponderous music is a good thing for us in that way! I think that having songs that are often slower and heavier, there's not the same demand for the spirit of aggression and intensity that you might have with other metal. Feeling that you need to be telling an epic tale. I think the sound lends itself to exploring some of those themes.

Etienne: Definitely I think it fits together well with the kind of lyrics we end up writing.

One of the most startling elements of Tribunal is the cello. As soon as I heard it, I was surprised that there weren't many doom bands with cellos – the richness of it seems to work so well with this kind of sound. What I loved about it was that it didn't feel like an afterthought, it felt as if the cello lines were an integral part of the songs themselves. How do you go about writing, do the guitars and bass come first, or does the cello come first?

Soren: It's surprising to hear you say that, because a lot of this record, the earlier versions were written without cello! We did spend a long time during the recording process reworking songs, and rethinking: "maybe this guitar melody can be on cello, or maybe this could be added here".

Etienne: 'Without Answer' was very fundamentally written sitting in my old apartment sitting jamming with me on guitar and you on cello for a very long time. But I think that was the only song we wrote with cello in hand. And the rest of them were composed with the intention of being a more traditional band set up, and then "ok, how can we bring the cello into this?".

Soren: And our first shows were played as a standard four piece, we didn't have the cello, and I didn't really have an idea of how we would be able to play it live. I thought it might be something that maybe we could do more on the album, or maybe we could do an intro here or there – things were written with a more standard line-up in mind. But then, when I started experimenting with the electric cello, I didn't really know if it would be possible at first, because I'm already playing bass, and I have to get to the mic stand and everything, but with a lot of practice, and faith in my straplocks, we made it work. Once we realized that it was feasible in a live setting, it became more exciting to work it into our songs. I don't think either of us want to have something on the album where you can't have a similar version of that live. I don't want to have big chunks missing, or just have backing tracks, so after we realized that that was possible, we started working it into the songs a lot more, and we did really take our time with it, and spent a lot of time trying to make the cello a natural element of it. I think that's been the biggest thing that we're thinking about in terms of our next album. We're really writing with the cello first in mind, and the keys, because we also didn't play with a keyboardist on the first album, so a lot of the keys were added on later during the recording process. But also, now that we have a keyboardist live, it's really changed our thinking about the role of the keys, and it's expanded the palette that we have to work with.

As you work on your next album, which you've said previously will be more of a refinement of your sound, do you see yourself expanding what you can do with strings, or will you always gravitate to something that you can reproduce live?

Etienne: I think we want to stay in a place where we can reproduce it live. As Soren said, we're keen to try and write from a place where we're thinking about the cello being more of a fundamental part of the songs, but as of right now - violins are great, I think having a whole string quartet would be very fun - but I also like the idea of sticking with a more stripped-down approach, keeping things more achievable.

Soren: And I love the sound of the cello, and there's so much diversity that the cello can bring. The electric cello that I play is also a five-string, so there's also a bit more space to move around on there. Currently I have an extra low string, but I've been thinking of switching it off for an extra high string since I end up playing quite high on the cello a lot of the time just to be able to cut through the mix, so, with that in mind, there's a really, really huge range of sound that we can get.

Do you see the appeal of doing something completely different, like Ulver or Pestilence have in the past, or do you see Tribunal being very consistent?

Etienne: I like the idea of respecting your name and the concept of your project. But, I think we'll grow naturally, and I don't want to put any limits on where that will go. At the same time, when it comes to this kind of project, nobody's making you continue to use the name, so if you want to do something different, just do it in a different set-up. There's a diverse range of music that I enjoy, and there's a diverse range of music that Soren enjoys, but I think that if we were going to do something that made no sense in the context of Tribunal, we would just call it something else.

Soren: I think that resonates with my attachment to bands having this particular aesthetic, or particular vision, and I would like for the project to at least remain legible as still being Tribunal.

Etienne: You can grow over time. I look at somebody like Paradise Lost for example, they got very weird at some point with Host, but if you look at it on an album-by-album basis, each record doesn't sound that different. Draconian Times doesn't sound that different from Icon, and then One Second is not that different from Draconian Times, and then once you're at One Second, Host isn't a huge departure from that. So, I could see us potentially making that kind of slower transition from album to album, though I don't think we're going to go full Depeche Mode! Rather than just doing a total abrupt change, which would be different.

Soren: Maybe just on the weird side-project or something, if we get the urge!

One of the most noticeable characteristics of your brand of doom, in contrast to the more drone-oriented bands, is that there's very much a metallic, riff-based core to it. Are you a traditional metal band at heart?

Soren: I would identify with that. I really like traditional styles of doom, and I always want to have memorable riffs, and I want riffs that feel good to play live, and feel good to see people responding to live, so I feel that I'm pretty motivated by a classic metal ethos. I wouldn't want to lose the heaviness completely to orchestration. One of the joys of playing live as a metal band is having the response that people have at a metal show, and I think that I would really miss that if we were not to do that kind of work. I love making music that's heavy, making riffs that are memorable, so I suppose in that way, I'm fairly traditional.

And what inspires Tribunal? It would be great if you could recommend some music to the MetalBite readers.

Soren: It's very rainy and dark in Vancouver right now, so I've been enjoying a lot of funeral doom. I listen to Profetus quite a lot – The Sadness Of Time Passing and As All Seasons Die. I listen to those two back-to-back quite a lot in the gloomier months. That's the first thing that comes to mind in terms of what's on repeat for me these days.

Etienne: I haven't been listening to that much music right now, but we've got a real exciting rack of concerts coming up our way, so I've been spending a lot of time listening to bands I'm excited to see. With the weather as it is, I've been listening to the new Insomnium record a lot.

Winter's Gate was amazing. They just get better.

Etienne: I think Winter's Gate is the greatest melodic death metal record ever in my opinion.

The new Katatonia album is good if you want a rainy-day album!

Etienne: I love Katatonia, I think it's a fantastic record as well.

Finally, what does the future hold for Tribunal?

Etienne: No huge curveballs. Just as you say, we're working away on our second record. I think we're keen to take advantage of the momentum we have, but at the same time it's an interesting challenge, because now we have an expectation. Working on this first record – it was indulgent, it was a project of our own, something we were doing for a bit of fun. So, it's a very different context now, writing something with a bit of expectation. There's an audience who are actually waiting to hear it! We want to make sure we don't let them down. We're keen to try to play live more, obviously – busy lives, busy schedules: that can be hard. But, we've made a couple plans, we've announced Covenant Fest in Vancouver, we're going to be appearing there, which is going to be really fun, and a few more things that we're going to hopefully be able to announce over the next couple months. But I think at least as of right now, we're sticking to Western Canada, although we'd be open to other offers if we could make them work.

Soren: Yeah, it would be great to have opportunities to travel more broadly. There are always challenges with that, with visas and everything. We're right along a great line of cities here on the West Coast of North America, but you unfortunately cannot just pop down to the United States on a week's notice and play a string of shows, so it'd be great if something broader came along. But we're continuing to just try and play, and get back into the writing mode, and as Etienne said, it is an odd time right now. It did feel as though we were creating the album in such isolation, and when I was making it, I would have a lot of moments where I would think "Will anyone want to listen to this, does it really work?". But it's nice to have some validation that people are really connecting with it, it's hard to ignore when you're in the writing process. A lot of the songs on the second record, we've already had full draft versions of for a while. Now, revisiting those drafts, it's definitely in my mind how we relate to the fact of people having a bit of an expectation of our sound right now, and how much that should influence it or not. Certainly, there's a lot of momentum and excitement about going into the next record and starting to jam out some of those songs.

I'd love to see Tribunal come to Europe, but I know it's a long way, and it costs a lot of money!

Soren: I'd love someone to bring us to Europe!

Etienne: We would absolutely love to if it all made sense, but 'one step at a time'!

And with that, Etienne finishes his (presumably strong) coffee, Soren departs to take care of the dog that has made a few amusing interruptions during our time together, and we all look forward to the next chapter in the story of what promises to be a band to watch very closely indeed.

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!