After seven years Entombed returns as Entombed A.D. with new autstanding album "Back to the Front". This was a perfect time to get some answers from band's guitar player Nico Elgstrand.

Kubiccy

Hey Nico, few days ago was your 43th b-day so first of all: best wishes! The older the better to play death metal?

[Laughs] Thank you, they say you get wiser when you get older but I don't think that goes for death metal guitar players who generally are not wise to begin with. Still enjoying it very much though!

Why your stage-coming took so long? Seven long years! All the mess with Alex wasn’t the only reason, wasn’t it?

Man, I don't know how seven years passed, I remember six months after Serpent Saints was released that I thought, isn't it time to start working on the next one. I really don't wanna throw blame around but let's just say that it's not gonna be no seven years to the next one, we are already working on the next album so expect a more frequent release schedule from now on!

Serpent Saints was straightforward reference to Entombed' death metal basics. Back to the Front seems to be more influenced by your death&roll story in the middle of band existence. Was it intended?

Not really, we just tried to come up with the best songs possible and not think consciously about what we were doing but rather go on feel! It's never good I think to decide what u are gonna do exactly, that only limits the possibilities. 

I read somewhere (in some of Entombed reviews I guess) that the one who lost the most because of reshuffle in the bandwas Alex, not the rest of the band members. Well, I’m totally of the same opinion. You return in great style. What's your point of view?

Thanx very much, yeah I still don't understand what the hell his plan is, it doesn't seem that there is one but that's on him. We are just happy being back doing what we're supposed to do you know, play death and perhaps have a beer in between [laughs].

Anyway, no matter what happened in the past, today you still play and sound like an old & well known Entomed. The band kept its unique style. Did you change anything significant in studio working scheme after Alex leaving?

Yeah we started communicating and let everyone put their vibe on it rather than try to squeeze a performance that wasn't in that person so to speak. It's never smart to try and make tomato soup if you only have carrots. It was hard work but very rewarding in the end.

Undoubtedly nobody treats Entombed like a fresh meat on death metal scene, however at the moment the copyrights to original band name are divided between four former members: LG Petrov, Alex Hillid, Uffe Cederlund and Nicke Andersson. Do you think there’s a possibility to find a solution and finally end up all that mess?

I certainly hope so, although at the moment it's looking not so good. He who lives shall see!

Tour with Grave is just behind the corner. It starts in next few days and fortunately you’ll also come to Poland. Do you have any expectations regarding this tour? You had a long break from touring and all the stuff related to be on the road.

We're just happy to get out there and do what we do. We've done festivals through August and a short tour in Japan and it's really great to be back in the thick of it. We want everybody in the venue to die at each show on this tour, including us [laughs]. Metaphorically speaking obviously!

Do you remember Entombed' live sets while Masters of Death tour done along with Grave, Unleashed and Dismember? That was totally incredible experience! And the forthcoming tour will be a kind of the same, in a bit more cutted variant.

Thanx, I shall hope it will be the same but much better. We feel that we are a much tighter unit now and play together in a way that I believe will please everybody showing up.

You recorded the album as a team of 4 members, but during live shows you’re supported by second guitarist Johan Jansson. Is he already the new member of the band and if yes – how did it happen?

Yeah man he's in, solid as a rock he is. We were gonna go through a whole bunch of guitar players and just tried him out on Victors recommendation, instantly it sounded great and felt right. If it ain't broken don't fix it as they saying goes.

You skip bass for guitar but to me you always were a guitarist who only played bass when it was needed. Not the opposite. Is that correct?

Precisely, I've always been playing guitar and just happened to end up on bass for I think ten years or so [laughs].

Solo parts are very typical detail for Back to the Front. What is more, some of them are very melodic in particular in tracks like 'Pandemic Rage', 'Eternal Woe' or 'Digitus Medius'. How long did you work on this side?

I don't really think and work on it so much but just go and pick the take that has the best flow. Some of the melodies you are referring to we're written but most of it is just of the top of my head at the time. It's really quick and works good for me in one way but on the other hand I always have to go through hell to relearn it afterwards since it's very spontaneous when it's recorded. 

Please tell me few words about gear you use. The more detailed answer, the better!

In the studio we were mainly using an old Marshall head from the seventies and various weehbo distortion pedals such as JVM drive, plexidrive and bastard. Some old electro harmonix fuzz pedals and a line driver called the godfather which was awesome. That was it as I recall. 

Guitars were mainly my dear 71 strat hard tail and a Gibson les Paul special from I think 92.

Nothing fancy. When we play live I use a Microamp or an Echoplex straight into the amp and a Boss tuner, that's it, I like to keep the gear simple. Any effects the front of house soundman gets to put on there if it's needed but usually it isn't. Again, if it ain't broken fuck it [laughs]!

Final question. Why actually Terra Firma splitted up? Don’t you miss it? Harms Way is a great record, one of my favorite.

[Laughs] thank you, it was good fun and I really enjoyed it musically at times but there was a lot of problems within the band that finally took its toll. Can't say I miss it, I'm much better off with Entombed.

Among the bands in an overcrowded power metal scene, Nocturnal Rites are not just the latest addition to the never-ending list or another copycat of the style's predecessors. With "Shadowland", the 5th album under their collective belt, Nocturnal elevates their craft to the new heights and stands tall among its peers as one of the genre's best. By improving every aspect of the writing process and adding heavier and more aggressive production "Shadowland" marks the most complete album in the band's career; without a doubt it'll be their biggest album to date. Nils Eriksson (bass) gives us the inside view on band's history, details behind "Shadowland" and future plans...

Chris


My first introduction to Nocturnal Rites came with "Afterlife", and I'm no expert on Nocturnal Rites trivia. I'm saying this because I've heard that Nocturnal Rites started out as Death Metal act. What made you stop playing that type of music?

Wow, that was long time ago... We started out back in 1990 and back then the flavor of that time was death metal obviously, every kid was playing death metal back then... We kind of jumped on it and started doing it but the stuff we grew up listening to were heavy metal bands like Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and all those bands, so it actually didn't take us very long to sort of get around to how we sound right now. It happened gradually over the course of the years... it took us about 2 years to realize this is what we want to do.

Can you tell me a little bit about the members involved in Nocturnal Rites nowadays? Who's still left from the original band?

Fredrik Mannberg started the band in 1990 and I joined in 1991 so we're the core members I guess...

How did you hook up with Jonny Lindkvist?

7 or 8 years ago our drummer had a band and Jonny was singing in that band so, when Anders Zackrisson left we knew that we had a world class singer just around the corner. We just called him up, he came down and it worked out really well.

On "Shadowland" I feel that you guys took another step away from power metal and went towards a more classic, heavier American sounding heavy metal, was it intentional?

No, I don't think so. If you'd listen to our back catalog I think you're gonna realize that we've never done 2 albums that sound exactly alike. We always try to evolve and change with every album. We've never sat down and wrote songs intentionally and try to make them sound in a certain way. We just write whatever feels right at the moment and it usually turns out really well. I guess "Afterlife" sounded a little bit different than the other albums due to the fact that we had a new vocalist Jonny. Jonny's voice is a lot rougher than Anders' and I guess that triggered some kind of, I don't know, a thing for us as songwriters which is write around his voice a bit and stuff got a little bit tougher.

It seems like he sparked a lot more energy in you...

Definitely, it's like a new start to get a new guy singing. It's just inspirational to hear his great voice on the tracks that he did... everything was just so much easier when Jonny joined.

Since he joined each album is getting heavier and heavier. Do you think one day you might go full circle to the starting point and record a death metal album?

[Laughs] I don't think so. I mean, I think that new album has actually a lot more melody and a lot more sing along kind of stuff than the "Afterlife" did have. This new record is a lot more melodic than the "Afterlife" so it's probably more like step back then step towards death metal [laughs]. I mean, we never gonna start playing death metal again.

Yeah, I didn't think so anyway...

[We laugh]

You already pointed out a few things, but in your own words, what are the biggest differences between "Shadowland" and "Afterlife"?

I think we've managed to get some more melody into our songs and we've worked a lot more on vocal lines, vocal arrangements and also incorporated a lot more guitar work to the album, just get it more complete sounding album I guess.

Did you guys change anything in the way you work, rehearse or record since "Afterlife"? How does the typical birth of a song come about in Nocturnal Rites?

It's pretty much all this same scenario. It's either Fredrik or Nils Norberg, our guitarists, they come up with an idea or riff and than the 3 of us meet up in the studio, we have our own studio, and make an outline for a song. Once that's done we make a simple recording of it, we take tape home and I start working on vocal lines and lyrics. That's really how it works and it's been working like that for quite some time actually.

Although it worked out extremely well, I found your choice of Daniel Bergstrand's Dug-Out Studio very surprising. What made you choose his studio since up till now he always opted for much heavier bands (SYL, Meshuggah, Darkane)?

I think that's why we chose him actually. I think we've always been looking for a really heavy sound and someone that can make us sound like, we are much angrier than we actually are. I mean, we do realize that we play melodic power metal but still we want to sound and have a production to have your speakers burn [laughs]. We are a more aggressive band than a lot of the other power metal bands right now and I think our sound justifies that too.

Definitely, it's one of the things that impress me about your band, you are not just another sweet power metal band or a copy of Helloween.

I think that the fact that we are all very different is that we listen to different styles of music and often very heavy music. I still listen to death metal and even some country, Fredrik listens to a lot of thrash metal, death metal. Nils Norberg listens to a lot of fusion, jazz and all kinds of different stuff so, we're all very different and I think that shapes our sound.

From the front cover you look like a fully fantasy-inspired band but most of your lyrics seem to deal with different subjects, more down to earth ones. Is there any relation between the cover and lyrics?

We have some fantasy kind of oriented lyrics, not traditional fantasy in a sense of dragons and that kind of stuff but everything that we describe from real world is a fantasy in some way. My lyrics are not really describing the real world in that sense, real evens and real people they are my fantasies, a bit of science fiction and in that sense I guess we are very much fantasy oriented band lyrically.

What did you mean with the title "Shadowland"?

"Shadowland" is sort of continuation of "Afterlife". Shadowland is a place where you go right before you pass out. You can go either way and that's why we have that kind of dual landscape thing, one dark and one light side, you can go either way sort of a crossroads or something.

Looking back at your work are you completely satisfied with "Shadowland"?

I think so, but you know what? I don't listen that much to my own albums once it's done it's done. I can't change anything about it so I just leave it. I'm not that kind of guy that sits and listens to my own albums and go all critical on them. Once it's recorded, it's done, you move on. But to answer your question I think it's probably the best album we've ever done in terms of writing a complete album. In terms of all moods are expended on it and songs are ranging from aggressive, fast ones to slow and almost epic ones. I feel very, very confident that this album definitely is going to be our biggest album so far. It did very well in Europe and I hope it will in States too.

Since you don't waste your time on your previous albums what are you doing right now, already thinking of the new one, writing new songs, rehearsing, preparing for a tour?

In coming weeks we are doing some festivals in Europe, after that I guess we're coming back home for a while and we'll start planing our tour schedule for a fall. I guess that's really what's occupying our minds right now. We always have a few songs cooking so we've been working on some stuff that we have left from the last album plus a new stuff too. We never rest...

I guess it's the nature of heavy metal business, you either record an album or go on tour to stay on top of things...

Yeah, we do what we love so we're not complaining.

Thank you for the interview. Any final comments?

Give the album a try, hopefully you'll like it and someday I hope to see you all on tour in States.