Not too bad, thank you. The world is changing; I suspect not for the better. But what can you do?

We're moving slowly as a group. One step at a time. Signing with Metal Blade Records was the next step for us. A lot of the best music is to be found in the shadows of the public, where integrity, joy or sheer necessity is the reason of doing.

This is not meant as a corny response, but I honestly believe the question is if the public is ready for us.

I'm quite alright with solitude in general and long stretches of time where nothing happens only contributes with focus and clarity in my work. Some of the positive things to come out of all this has been the notion of subtleties in my daily life. Pleasant or unpleasant it is important to feel your feet and be honest to yourself.

I'm not an expert in the strategies of overcoming Covid-19. I'm a pessimist though, so I'll be dressing up for another year in the bog.

For me the title is pointing towards what is within

The object is known as a 'Haruspex'. It's an ancient Etruscan model of a sheep's liver that was used to read and interpret the entrails of sacrificed animals.'

I will only comment on musical themes on the album since it is where I'm responsible. I never think of themes in my work as such. But I'll take the challenge and describe the music in terms of themes. The main theme would be our group, our friendship, what we are together as a whole. I'm interested in collectivity. To learn to act according to a group rather than to my ego. This requires something that is reminiscent of distance. It feels like distance because you do distance yourself, but it's not really distance because you move closer to the actual work, the music, and the group, when your ego is not there to direct you. You distance your activity from yourself, and make space for the actual work, what it is all about, the music, the group, the friendship.

My personal connection is closer to the music than the words. In my life in general my personal connection is closer to the communication of music than the communication of words. Words hold a promise of precision that I'm constantly disappointed and misdirected by. The emotional communication of music is never misunderstood. Either you feel it or you don't. 'Triumphal Chariot of Antimony' was the last song I wrote and is the one I feel the deepest emotional connection to. The tonal language is abstract but precise, close and intimate, it is what I'm looking for when composing.

Some years ago I moved to Ireland and Mikkel moved to Sweden. So we had to find a way to continue through distance. I guess it was the reason I started writing these songs, to simply make sure we would continue. In the process I slowed down the compositional process quite a lot. Making time for the chaos it is to make something from nothing. As a group we started working with demos for the first time. I went to Sweden, to Mikkel, to make demos of the music I had written. It allowed us more control of how the songs found their shape. Control is not necessarily a good thing when working with music in my opinion. But I believe we're quite chaotic as a group, so for us further control only contributed to how much emotion was possible to put into the empty vessels unfinished sketches are.

We take one step at a time. Every change is a step along the way until the road ends. Like a stream finding its way down a hill side, maneuvering in the directions that makes most sense and takes the least effort until it mouths out into the ocean.

We only recorded drums and bass in Sweet Silence Studios so I don't think Flemming got the full picture haha. That being said, to quote Flemming himself the only music he actually likes is The Rolling Stones. I think he admires the way we do what we do. What he thinks of the music itself I've got no idea.

To me music always suffers from some kind of trauma when being realized. The inspiration is always so clear and other worldly, but all the stages it requires to capture sound and formulate it through, mixing and all that is bound to obscure the actual feeling of the music.

To me the instrumentals work in order to blur out the beginnings and endings of the songs of which it was necessary for the final movement of the whole record. Beside of that they are pieces of music in themselves.

The tonal material is abstract, but still contains a lot of feeling. Not understanding but still allowing to exist, to welcome the unknown is the deepest way I know how to connect with anything.

Not many have noticed but 'The Feline Smile' is kind of a sibling to 'Black Torches'. 'The Feline Smile' ends with same piece of music that begins 'Black Torches'. The choruses share similar parts, but are played on different instruments, and the chords played after the choruses of both songs are the same. It was originally meant as the same song. I think the song-writing was somewhat inspired by Steeleye Span, Mercyful Fate and Ved Buens Ende. During the recording of 'The Feline Smile' we were studying changes. I think changes are a very fundamental part of making music. How you go from one place to another. How much difference can a specific change hold without it sounding too constructed?

I think Marcus was more comfortable singing on this record. Comfortable in the sense of letting go. He always says he's not a trained singer, only started singing along with starting this band. So I suppose he's a bit reluctant when he's singing. I couldn't care less about technicality or whatever in music. It is all about feeling to me. I contributed with a lot of vocal harmonies throughout the record. Production-wise I think it allowed Marcus' vocal to stand on its own without it sounding disconnected because my falsetto is there to resonate with both Marcus' voice and the music.

We just cancelled a couple of release shows. So instead of rehearsing we've isolated in a small cabin on an island called Møn to write new material together. Maybe we'll do some online shows instead. We'll see. I worship music as a physical experience. Not as something that can be compromised into a digital experience and I'm reluctant to let the world know that there's a substitute to live music. Because there's not. But then again it might be nice enough to click on a link and watch someone like us expose themselves in their rehearsal space...?

Thanks Lior. It was a pleasure. We're in the process of writing new music this week and might not have that opportunity the next long while, so we've been prioritizing that, and thus pushing the promotional aspect aside. But then now while the others were cooking up some food I sat down to do this. Thanks for the thoughtful questions. I've had a flask of Red Breast whiskey that I brought with me from Ireland, a glass of champagne and a cup of coffee to get stimulated from along with a new album by Playboi Carti. It's like a vampire record, like King Diamond, but it's modern hiphop, it's modern trap. Times change and time is relative. What was rock 50 years ago doesn't sound like rock anymore, it's still rock though. Then the question is if one wants to stay stagnant in the past? I say no thanks. I trust the youth with all my heart.

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