Whenever you look back at the evolution of the metal scene in Sweden during the 90s, it's impossible to overlook all these great melodic black and death metal bands that came out during that era, from masterminds such as Dissection, Vinterland, and Unanimated to the main topic of this interview, the one and only Sacramentum. Ever since their return in 2019, this band has had such a magnificent revival with their infernal live shows, even performing as headlining acts at some Deathfests on a couple of occasions, while their fanbase is ever-growing and remaining as loyal as ever before. For the past couple of years, there have been talks about the release of a new version of their second album The Coming of Chaos, which was carefully and successfully restored to its envisioned glory thanks to the studio magic of the renowned producer Dan Swanö, who did a brilliant work with the remixing and remastering, as well as the inclusion of a new artwork by none other than the great Kristian "Necrolord" Wåhlin. Although it took some time for the new version to finally come to life, it all changed when Century Media Records released a visualizer for "Dreamdeath", the first track of the sophomore album, which showcased that history from 1997 is about to be changed forever, while also announcing the official release date of December 13th with open pre-orders. Personally, even though I am highly skeptical when it comes to reworking classic albums, I put all my doubts aside when I heard the remixed version of the song, so I figured it was probably a great opportunity to chat with their vocalist Nisse Karlén about the new version of The Coming Of Chaos, while also discussing other things like the current plans for the new Sacramentum album, the impact that the band still has worldwide, and we also talked a bit about the sad news regarding the death of Iron Maiden's former vocalist Paul Di'Anno who had passed away on the same day of this interview. I truly hope you will enjoy this conversation, because I have been highly looking forward to it, especially as a longtime fan of Sacramentum and other great Swedish melodic black metal bands of the 90's.

Vladimir

Hi, Nisse. How are you doing?

Hello. How are you? Nice to see you.

I'm doing pretty well. Though I'm kinda shocked because of the death of Paul Di'Anno.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, I saw that. I'm actually drinking whiskey in honor. So, cheers to Paul Di'Anno.

Yeah. Cheers.

An icon has left us too soon as usual. Most of the good, only the good die young.

Yeah. Were you at least lucky to see him perform live before he passed away?

Actually, yeah. I've seen him live a couple of times. This is a weird story, but, when I played in Gothenburg, in '95 or '96, there was a guy standing at the bar which I really, really hated. So, I was drunk and I threw a beer glass at him, and it hit Paul Di'Anno.

Oh, shit hahaha.

So, Paul Diano, he rushes in front of me "What the fuck, man?!", he stood screaming at me and I said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry". And then Nifelheim brothers, Pelle and Eric, they came directly up to me and said "Just so you know, we would have helped him to fight you".

Yeah, Hellbutcher and Tyrant are fucking Iron Maiden maniacs. So, if you ever diss on Iron Maiden in front of them, you're fucking dead.

Oh, yeah. I've known them since they were 14 years old.

So, you know the band since their very early days, I guess?

Oh, yeah. I have been with them since the first demo days. A very close friend of mine, he was the first guitarist of Nifelheim and wrote some riffs. He has another cool band now that's called Rite. Check it out.

Okay. Thank you for your recommendation.

Old school, brutal shit, and it's really, really good.

Do you know anything about that guitarist who said that he was fired from the band because he had a girlfriend?

Yeah. It's him, the story goes that they asked him "if it's okay if we write that in an interview?" He went "Yeah. Yeah. Whatever." It's all part of the show.

That's absolutely fucking crazy. So, the reason why I invited you here is because I saw the great news of the re-release of the remastered version of the sophomore album The Coming Of Chaos. And, wow, when I heard that new version of "Dreamdeath", I got so excited. I mean, it already sounds superior to the original version. The fact that you have Kristian Wåhlin's artwork, it made me feel so much more optimistic about it. This has been talked about for years now, but how come it came to happen in 2024?

Ever since the album was released, I have felt dissatisfied with how it came out. So, since 1997, I have had this in me all those years. You know, someday I will do something about it. I saved the original tape reels. It's 24 channels, 1-inch/2-inch tapes, really big tapes, which really were Century Media's property, but I told them that "No, no, there were no tapes". So, 4 years ago, I started to really, really look for someone who can transfer them into the digital world, because these old tapes, they have been very securely stored at my place, and, you know, many movements of over the places, but I always kept them really, really safe, because I knew someday, I would do something about it. But it took me another 2 years to find someone who had a recorder like that. I asked around a lot of people, even Dan Swanö, and he told me "No, no. If you find someone who can do this, you know, please let me know because it's very unusual". I finally found a guy in England, and everything went well because you have to bake the tapes first because they can get sticky, and then it's all over. So, just shipped them over to England where I just did it on chance because there was no one who wanted to send some insurance on that kind of thing, and if they were lost, then there wouldn't be any remix. But anyway, I got the digital files, and I sent them to Dan Swanö, and he had listened to 2 songs on that, he was ecstatic and lyrical, he "What the fuck is this?" And even one of my greatest friends, Kristian "Necrolord" Wåhlin, he always supported me in whatever I do, I went "What do you think about this idea", but he said "No, no. Remix is a remix". So, no one believed in this project, and I didn't fight it for anyone more than myself, because I felt so. It wasn't a complete album as it should be. I've written 4 pages of extensive liner notes explaining all the process. It will be printed on the CD version on The Coming of Chaos release. And, what can I say? I mean, we started shipping files over the net. It took over 2 months, I think, and when I got the first mix, I brought it down to Kristian, and "Hell yeah. Well, listen to it". I went "What do you think?" And he was "What the fuck? What? Now I get it. What the fuck?" I've known him since the old days. And it's very, very rare that he gets excited about something unless it's Beherit, Bathory or Blasphemy. And then I played it for Anders and I asked him "What do you think about this?" He started listening and he said, "What? I don't remember this". And I said "Yeah, well, mhmm". During the process, I listened a lot in my car, and my wife told me "I never heard this album before". And I said "Yeah, you have, but not in this way". So, I didn't even, in my wildest dreams, would think that it would be like this. It was like recording it all over again when we had the shipping files. I already had the cover, the cover of the Cosmic Key Creation that they did with the burning yeah. But Kristian asked me over the phone one day, and he said "You know what, either you do it or you don't", and he rambled on. And because he has a lot of these really secret stuff, and he feels a twitch, he pulls out a painting and says "This is the Coming of Chaos". It was only half done and I said "What the fuck Kristian? You can't do this to me". because he lives 3 hours away from me, so I couldn't go to him for 3 weeks, I think. And I told him "Please send me a picture. Send me something." And he of course, didn't. When I saw it, I stood there stuttering, and then he got anxious. It's been such a process, and it has been for me, getting back into the roots of Sacramentum and living on a higher level in so many ways. We needed all this break to be able to do this now, what we do, and then Century media went "What about a new album?", I said "Yeah. Just wait. Listen to this". When they heard the test song, they were also "Yeah. Yes. It sounds amazing". So, yeah, I try not to compromise my shit, but, you know, this is not an ordinary remix, and you have to read the liner notes. I explained everything from back in how it was in those days when we recorded it and we recorded it with a fantastic person and a great musician, Andy LaRocque. But he's a heavy metal musician. So, it really felt like we recorded the album all over again.

Speaking of the final result as of what I've heard recently, it really seems like you guys were trying to bring it closer to the original first album Far Away From The Sun, especially with the updated cover art. I mean, your first album Far Away From The Sun is still regarded as an essential Swedish melodic black death metal classic and a timeless masterpiece. But out of curiosity, I want to know how was The Coming Of Chaos, the original release received back in 1997? Did people constantly draw comparisons between the 2 albums?

Oh yeah. The thing was, you gotta understand, I don't know how old you are, but still, back in those days in '97, we would do the thing that would be that smart thing to do. If you wanna be a popular band, then we should go with a faraway sound. But we were like this. We hated the fucking scene that was growing. You know, we were ashamed to even be associated with black metal fucking clowns and idiots, so we did the opposite. We turned down the melody, this in the mix. It is that natural progression of Far Away From The Sun. And in my opinion, much more a better album overall, even though I understand it's hard. It's the music, especially Far Away From The Sun, I created the entity that is the core of Sacramentum, and yeah it has a huge will of its own, and it has proven to me that I'm not in control. The entity is in control of me, us now. And it was calling to us so strongly, so we just couldn't deny it anymore. When I got back into it, I realized that, fucking hell. I really love everything I do on stage nowadays, and that's why I choose to only do the vocals. And I always wanted to do both in the vocals live, but couldn't find suitable musicians back then. It was impossible because either people were idiots or they were playing in several other bands. So, we have shared members with Dissection and we were all friends, and Lord Belial, we were all friends and still are friends. We were helping each other, but we couldn't take someone we supported. It was a very small scene back then and there were only 3 black and death bands on the west coast of Sweden, and it was Dissection, Sacramentum and Lord Belial. And we all hung out and knew each other. And, in Stockholm, we had Unanimated, and I remember I was at a concert opposite Stockholm. I bought the Unanimated Fire Storm demo. I don't remember who it was, but yeah. And Micke the vocalist, I'm talking to him from now on. Now he's moving back to Stockholm again. So, it was for a couple of years after he got out of prison. I missed all those things so much, but I didn't really allow myself to do that because I had something else I had to do. And I pursued a lot of other interests that I didn't have time to do, when Sacramentum was taking all my time, but I've gone very, very deep into myself and called out every demon and confronted them and almost died in a process a couple of times, but no. I'm still here.

You're pretty much holding it strong, and it's great to see that Sacramentum returned back in 2019. For a great and influential Swedish band such as yourself, you really left such a big mark and you're still regarded as one of the influential and most important bands worldwide.

I just wanna say thanks. Thank you.

You're welcome. But I wanted to ask you. Since your return, have you had the impression that Sacramentum came back at the right place and the right time?

Probably. Yes. And the reason why we got back together was because I had started to write new songs for Sacramentum and I had asked Anders repeatedly "Isn't it time to, you know, get Sacramentum together?" And he said, "No, I don't want to". I went "Okay. I won't do it without you". So, then I thought maybe I'll start to write things and play it to him so he might get interested. And I've written a lot of really good stuff, which I am still working on, but I didn't get the chance to show it to him because he called me and said "Hey! How do you feel about putting Sacramentum back together?" and I was like "Shut the fuck up.". And I said, "Well, it depends. I have some demands first". And he went "Yeah, whatever you're open to". Finally, we were getting headliners of all the Deathfests around, headliners at Maryland Deathfest, which was amazing, and California Deathfest, Netherland Deathfest, UK Deathfest, and we got a ridiculous amount of pay for those shows. So, it's now or never. And, both me and Anders were like "Fuck yeah! Let's go!" And when we rehearsed the first time, it was fucking hell. We had missed it so much, and Anders told me "Fucking hell. Your vocal, it is insane". I know. I hadn't sung in like 20 years. So, I don't know, it has evolved by itself as well, I guess. But to answer that question, right time, right place, yes. Did we choose it? No. Not really. The entity was calling so hard for us and gave us this enormous opportunity, and I felt, anyway, to go all in, and that's what I did, and that's what I'm still doing. And that's why the new album is delayed because it has to be perfect, but I need to feel satisfied or otherwise, we won't release it at all. And I will never ever release another album without Necrolord's artwork on it, and Necrolord is a great friend of mine. He's a fantastic artist, a real artist in every aspect and in every way. So you can't rush things. And, on the phone, he told me that the vortex of The Coming of Chaos album, he redid it over 100 times. This is how insane that man is. He's very much like me, just much more laid back and, but he's got that feeling when if you don't feel it, then no, it won't happen. So, the album has been done for over 2 years, but because of reasons which I won't go into, Kristian had a lot of different difficulties, and I said "It's done when it's done. It's no problem". And yeah, I didn't have any rush. I waited since 1997.So what the fuck? A couple of more years? Yeah. I want it as I really would have wanted it back then. Ego was big back then, and the scene was a mess. Century Media was on us and everything just went to shit really. I was so fucking mad and angry when The Coming of Chaos album was released with a shitty cover. The first time I saw it, I think I was, in essence, you know, when the whole Century Media came into the tour bus and were very, very, very angry at me and said "This is not a nice conversation, man". And I said "Well, what the fuck? What is it now?". And they said "You've been talking shit in interviews about Century Media" and I was like "Woah. What do you mean? What shit?", then they said something and I said "It's not shit. It's the fucking truth". What the fuck? At the end, we became good friends again, but I said "If you can't deal with us, cut us loose. We don't wanna work together". And now all these years later, I had to tell them a couple of times "What the fuck? Haven't you learned anything yet"? If you say jump, I will never jump, fuck you. We're not that kind of band. It's not for anyone, and that's what Sacramentum always has been. When we started, in my wildest dreams, I would never even think that it would be what it has become. I mean, I'm so humble and grateful for the fact that we have been able to just tour for the last 3 years with Far Away From The Sun alone. And it's still Far Away From The Sun show. And now, we have The Coming of Chaos. So, at the end of this year, we have a really special release party in Gothenburg and you are of course invited if you want to, it will be a real party.

I gotta say, I'm really happy to see Necrolord come back to do the artwork for the remaster of The Coming Of Chaos. And I'm actually curious to know, have you probably considered including some of his additional artwork in the booklet or inserts on the new album?

Of course. I have a lot of plans. We talk about things like that all the time. I am in creative chaos mode when me and Kristian meet. We see each other roughly one time at a month, or even more often because we have other musical projects together that are just for us, but I kept coming up with a lot of ideas all the time, and he and I asked him "Is it too much"? He said "No, no". Fuck, I love it. So, I think I have three Sacramento albums maybe now, but I will compromise it to one masterpiece. Well, I can't say masterpiece because it's not something that I can choose if it would be a very, very good album that I would feel satisfied with and the entity the true spirit of Sacramentum. On the new Coming of Chaos album, it has the infernal seal, it's a painting that Kristian has done as well, and I have all the originals in my home because he has so many paintings. We help each other and I'm just blessed. I'm so humble to the fact that people like yourself are living for it. If one person is living for it, then it's all worth it. And that's pretty much how we did it back in the days because I come from a little shithole town in the middle of Sweden, and people were hating me all along, but still, I had my goal, and I do this. And hey, we were the first band from that town who got a record deal, so what the fuck?

And a major record deal at best because Century Media Records is a very big respected label. It has Tribulation, Necrophobic, and Marduk, so many great bands on the roster. And having you still be a part of that family is a big deal. The fact that you still have so many big fans, maybe even more fans than it had back then in the 90s, it really shows that they show appreciation to what you guys do and that, you know, they respect you as an artist. I mean, times have changed. Back then, labels felt the need to interfere with albums. Nowadays, they do it much less. But the problem is nowadays, people have trouble finding labels, and they cannot find labels no matter what genre they play. Even if you're great, you just cannot find a good record deal. And it's so important that you guys are still under their wing.

Yeah. This is nothing that I haven't really thought about, but still, we had gotten so many fucking deals, you can't believe. All of the people at Century Media, they were road crew managers, they are old-school guys and they are running Central Media now, because Robert Kampf, the founder of Century Media, he sold it a couple of years back and now it's only those guys who we met back then in like 1995/1996, and we had a great time. Meeting them again is like a class reunion or whatever, and they are business persons, but still, they know that you can't push it too much. And I have told them that so many times, if you're pushing it, hey, then it's all over. So, we're still negotiating about the contract on Century Media. And, I got the question just a couple of weeks ago if I still wanna release the new album on Century Media, and I said "Yes, of course", because they weren't sure because I had turned down every deal they made us. I'm in no rush.

Exactly, because nothing should be ever rushed and nothing should ever be forced. There's a very good saying, someone I know actually said this: "You should not force art because art is like a fart. If you force it, it's shit".

Oh, yeah. That's good. I just have to rephrase it so I can remember. That's how I felt about the old Coming of Chaos album because that was rushed and so was The Black Destiny, but that's another story. So, the new album, why it's not out yet, has so many reasons, but everything has its own time and it's ready when we feel it's ready, but we are working on it and I think it sounds amazing, the things we have. That's what I love about this process of making music, which in my opinion is the ultimate art form because it's poetry, lyrics, it's like theatre. It's artwork. And when it all comes together, then it's pure magic. And it's what I do because I'm a fan of this music. I'm a fan of everything, and I love when we're all playing, as soon as I can get off the stage, I'll go out to talk to people, drink beer and hang out with them. And if we're at festivals, we always stay for the whole festival because we wanna see the other bands. And we are the only band that really wants to stay a whole festival. Everybody just wanna go home, and I don't understand it. What can I say? I'm old school as fuck, and, I have respect for people. Nah. Most bands are fake, I would say, in my opinion. Music is good, but is there any substance behind it? Yeah. In a lot of cases, there is. I have actually been really surprised when I got back into the scene because I've been out of it for over 20 years, and when I got back and met younger people who were fucking hell. I have a tremendous amount of respect, and that's why we're in this genre because it's ever evolving. It's pushing the limits further and further and further and further away. When I don't feel like that anymore, like going up and just performing, then I will stop it again. I will stop Sacramentum again. And that's why I stopped Sacramentum back in the early 2000 because I didn't feel it anymore. I was fed up with the shit. I didn't wanna belong to these people because 2 or 3 percent of the people were actually what they said they were. The rest were, I don't know.

When you guys disappeared back in the early 2000s, the funny thing is back then, a lot of other bands similar to you such as Dissection, Unanimated, Vinterland and Gates of Ishtar, were not even around at the time as well because it all disappeared. You had bands that were following your footsteps like Thulcandra from Germany and they even said they really looked up to what you guys did. They didn't just say "Oh, we're just into Dissection, and we wanna do music like this". Steffen Kummerer, who is also the vocalist of Obscura, said that he and his friends were into Dissection, Sacramentum and Unanimated when they were younger. This is my kind of guy because it's not like that tree-hugging black-and-white pictures in a forest type of black metal. They said the melodic and artistic and theatrical side of black metal, that's the kind of black metal they are into.

That's the spirit of it, he gets the spirit of it. I haven't personally met him yet; I will talk to him over the phone and so on. But in January, we will do a tour with Thulcandra, and it was Stefan who approached me 2 years ago and asked "Would you be interested in doing a tour with us?" He's a great guy and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. He does it by feeling, and I know. Kristian Necrolord has done a lot of their covers, so they're good friends. And I gave Kristian the infernal seal pin at some point, and Kristian gave it to him because he knew how much he liked Sacramentum. And Kristian said, "They're writing new music". And he gave the pin to him and everything. Afterward, I also read that Steffen had a Far Away From The Sun reissue. So, he has helped us a lot as a prominent musician because he's such a talented musician. He's a really, really good musician. But that feeling side of it, he wants that and he wants to understand it. So, one of my closest friends who died 2 years ago was David Andersson, from The Night Flight Orchestra. I grew up with him and he lived here in my sanctuary for weeks at a time, a lost period of his life. We were doing a lot of music together, and he really, really wanted to release an album with me. And, even though I refuse to see it, I saw him, you know, slowly taking his life on my fucking floor. But still, I have. I am that person. I don't judge. And if I had judged, he would just withdraw, and then I wouldn't have all these fantastic memories which I have with him. And we haven't created the amazing music that we did. I will never release that or maybe be in some other project, but that's another thing. He was a fucking master and he was such a talented musician. I got him pissed off. He threw my old Ibanez guitar at me and it just hit me and it hit the floor, and I were like "oh, fuck". I was looking at all the original paintings. I think everything was okay and the guitar broke which I had since I was 16, and then I looked at him after. Everything was good, and I looked at him and said "Now you're getting it, David". And then he looks up at me with his "That's why I love you, Nisse. That's why I need you". That kind of rough feeling that can't be taught in music school or whatever. Either you got it or you don't. I don't wanna say that I'm special in any kind of way, I'm just expressing how I feel about it, and very few groups of others are like that the way they're doing it, like Kristian for example, with covers. It killed me back then. The Coming of Chaos coming out with my fucking sketch on the cover because they were rushing the fucking album, because we were going on tour. And so, for all these years, I have lived with that. But I knew I would do it someday and I never ever dreamt that in my whole life this enormous welcome and those who really can hear it and really are into it.

I know that the new version is gonna perform well because it already got so much positive feedback from the new single, but I really have to ask, do you also plan to do a remaster for the third album, The Black Destiny, or do you want to focus on the new album as soon as possible?

That's a really tricky question, and I don't know the answer to that yet. But how I feel and how I think, now I wanna focus because I have lived with this Coming of Chaos album since 1997. Now I am feeling I can let it go and it will be such a fucking heavy burden to finally let go. So, I'm feeling when this is released, then I can focus totally on the new album. So, I would say that we I have the original tapes of the remix and they are digitalized, but The Coming of Chaos album is the development of Far Away From the Sun, and The Black Destiny is developing in showing the middle finger to the fucking scene. So it was, you know, more in-your-face kind of lyrics and aggression, it was death-thrash. I like that, I like all that, but it's not Sacramentum really. So, The Black Destiny is half of a Sacramentum album. For people who want it, we will do another. I would do the remix, but I will probably use those songs, bonus tracks and maybe the first single of the new album, because that's how I see each other release, one demo version of a new song and, you know, something special, like, I don't know, live version as a teaser for the real recordings. I'm an old-school fan. I mean, I love all that shit. I'm an asshole that collects vinyl still. You probably are as well. What can I say? I love this kind of stuff, and that's what I want. How do I want this? Am I doing this for the right reason, or am I doing it for others? This is the kind of struggle I always have, and it's not the best way to make a living or whatever. It's art, artists have always, you know, been underdogs, and I love that. I love underdogs because they have some interesting views and they can teach you a lot, even though they might be very disturbed or whatever. But, you know, they see things from such a perspective that you need to fuck yourself up to really understand it. That's what I've been doing since I was 16 years old. I've been killing myself in a way and rebuilding myself, because, who am I? Am I a person that parents, school, my friends, or whatever society wants me to be? How do I know that that's what I am and what I think? So, it has been a very, very, very destructive journey in many ways and maybe still is sometimes, but that's how I do it. I gotta feel it in the fucking depth, or I don't know that someone else has implanted that feeling or opinion or whatever in my head and it's easy to fool yourself sometimes. The ego is fucking tricky, but I'm standing behind myself. Yeah, it sounds too much to say, but I'm really proud of what I have become really by all these hardships, it has been fucking hard, but I will do it all over again. I will change nothing.

That's the essence of an artist. There's a saying that goes "No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness", and there's even a saying that I have. One of my sayings goes "Every artist suffers for his art. If you have never suffered for your art, you're not a real artist or you're not a genuine artist".

There you go.

That's like I said, even if you have art schools, they don't teach you what art is. They teach you about art forms. You'd have to discover art for yourself, so that's what I think is, that there has to be an individual pattern to what you do. You need to understand it for yourself, you need to have your own perspective rather than have somebody teach you a perspective of what things are.

Thank you, my friend. You're a dear, dear friend of mine now. Just so you know, I fucking love it. I mean, I didn't even hesitate when you wrote to me because I felt that this is good, and I chose these things. I don't know if you know, but my first interview I gave in over 20 years was to a Spanish magazine, which is only written in Spanish and is printed in 500 copies. And I got, you know, offers from a lot, but I turned everything down and I've just felt it and that was the fucking most in-depth interview I've ever done. First, I got 6 or 10 pages of written questions, and then after that, when I answered them, it took several months, then I asked him to call me up and we could sit and chat like that. And we talked for 6 hours, and, you know, it became a massive article. And, yeah, I chose right, because South America, fucking hell.

They're maniacs.

Yeah. They are. And I love it. I'm a maniac myself. As I said, even if it's one person, the die-hard person in the crowd or just one person at the place, it doesn't matter. It's a full show. It's everything. That's all that I got on stage.

I gotta wrap up this interview, but I wanna firstly say thank you so much for this opportunity Nisse. It's been such a pleasure talking to you, man. I am highly looking forward to the release of this remastered version of The Coming Of Chaos, and I wish you and all the guys of Sacramentum all the best. And just as a final word, is there anything that you'd like to say for the fans?

I would like to say thank you. We are humble to the fact. And when you see us and when you see us walking around in the audience, don't be afraid. Come up to us and talk to us. We wanna take a beer with you and hear your story because that's why we are there. And we fucking love it. We love you. I mean, you are feeding us, and fucking hell, otherwise, I would be standing in the crowd, and I do anyway.