As we sit down with Mark, the brains behind Insomnius Dei, we cannot help but wonder - where does this guy get it all from? Not only the founder of Insomnius Dei, but also the vocalist, guitarist, drummer?... Well, nowadays, Insomnius Dei is pretty much a 2-man project, and based on what Mark has had to say about working with Terry - it sure seems to work out for them. Sit down and learn about a great band from Australia - some interesting things they have to say about their work, where it all comes from, and what philosophies are hidden behind their lyrics. Questions - courtesy of Kubiccy.

Before we pass on to the talk about your brand new album, let me ask you a few questions concerning the band history. Cryptal Darkness started from playing grind/death metal sounds but this kind of music appeared only at your demo recordings actually. I must admit that I had no occasion to listen to it unfortunately. Why did you decide to switch into doom metal? Are you satisfied with this choice and that what you’ve achieved behind this facade?

I joined Cryptal Darkness at the end of the grind thing so I could add more ‘darkness, melody and structure’ to the bands songs, the drummer did not like grind and saw a different vision for the band, so I was inlisted & I basically wrote most of the albums that followed. I felt Cryptal Darkness should have ended a few years before it did, things were not so great within the band. Pretty much after ‘They Whispered You had Risen’ the band should have ended, it was very limiting musically and the musicians involved where also limited as musicians, so the last 3 years of Cryptal where very frustrating. I don’t really look back with that much fondness, sure we made a few albums that people like, but I’m quite happy to be moving forward.

Why did you officially end Cryptal Darkness activity and start with completely new project – The Eternal?

Cryptal Darkness was not moving forward, it was stuck and as I mentioned there where a lot of issues within the band, in my opinion my music career didn’t really start until I formed The Eternal and actually began to tour internationally etc. I see Cryptal Darkness as my education in being in a band, but I was far too passive and didn’t have enough confidence to take charge of band’s decisions and because of this we basically didn’t move forward at all. Starting The Eternal was for me like taking charge of my own destiny, no regrets at all about this.

I really enjoy all your materials recorded as Cryptal Darkness, but the music of The Eternal unfortunately is not for me. Could you explain why suddenly the craving to emulate Paradise Lost at playing gothic rock?

We didn’t ‘crave’ to ‘emulate’ anything. If you actually listen to The Eternal properly, it sounds nothing like Paradise Lost. Listen to ‘To Drown’ ‘Everlasting’ or ‘Weight of Empathy’ and then tell me these sound like Paradise Lost. This Paradise Lost thing is a generalization people make who don’t actually listen to the music more than once. We don’t have any of the same motivations that Paradise Lost have and I think if you listen to our upcoming album ‘kartika’ you can hear this.

Some time ago, The Eternal has supported HIM on their Australian tour. Did you enjoy it? How was it to play as a support before such a famous „star”?

Yes this was an interesting experience, it was our first ‘Big’ Tour, so it was a touch overwhelming. I’d say doing the Australian ‘Opeth’ Tour was much more relaxing and enjoyable, we had been broken in from the HIM tour and had found our barings in bigger venues. But yes, it was great to get the music out to such large crowds everynight, hope to do some more shows like this in the future.

Let’s move on to the main topic of this interview. Why did you call to existence InSomnius Dei? Was it impossible to realize all your music visions through The Eternal?

It was basically just for fun, doing some doom/death metal as I really didn’t want The Eternal to head in this direction. So I’d sit at home with my guitar recording doom riffs and being gloomy haha… It was also a good way to remind people that The Eternal was not moving away from this style because we where out of ideas, we just wanted to. I think InSomnius Dei ‘Illusions Of Silence’ is a lot better than anything Cryptal Darkness did and Terry is just a master lyricist.

The music of InSomnius Dei differs crucially from that what you are doing in The Eternal. My theory is that you’re trying to mix two elements in InSomnius Dei’s music. You want to get back to more doom metal sounds and at the same time you don’t want to resign from commercial sounds so characteristic for The Eternal’s music. After all you’re The Eternal founding member, so couldn’t you influence the direction of its music development?

Well yes, the two bands are quite different, one key element in both is my melodic style, similar movements and harmonies I guess, but two different extremes so to speak. The Eternal remains my main vision at this stage, but InSomnius Dei is a great way to get out some of the more ‘underground’ and ‘extreme’ ideas I have.

Initially, InSomnius Dei was one-person project. Why did you start to co-operate with other musicians? Was it hard to proceed with it alone?

Basically, I can’t growl haha, I’m not a growler and Terry is one of the most expressive growlers around, we go way back to the mid 90’s together where we worked together briefly in Cryptal Darkness, since then Terry has been in many well known bands in Australia but we had fallen out of touch. Around 2006 I kept running into Terry at the Supermarket, and invited him over for a beer, so after a few beers I put on some InSomnius Dei and asked him if he was interested, he immedietly began writing lyrics on the spot! All of a sudden InSomnius Dei had this fresh and exciting element. Obviously a one man project in one dimention, which can be fine, but it just happened to work well and Terry added that much needed second dimenton to the music.

For a little while there, Terry Vainoras, James Hunt and Peter Martin appeared in the band. Why James and Peter endedn up leaving the band? What was their input in InSomnius’ music?

Well, they never actually contributed to the band, after Terry & Myself made the project ‘real’ we thought we needed a rhythm section, it soon became apparent we could do this ourselves, so it wasn’t that they left but more that we had no need for them.

At last you’ve recorded ”Illusions of Silence” only with Terry Vainoras, who is your old mate from The Eternal. Don’t you think about co-opting somebody else or perhaps in your opinion working as a couple is the best option for InSomnius’ future?

Terry was in InSomnius Dei before The Eternal, Terry only joined The Eternal before the last European tour as we needed a guitar player. The next InSomnius Dei album will only be the two of us again, I think two active contributors is more than enough for the project as we have no plans at this stage to perform live.

The duties split in the band seemed to be clear now. You’re responsible for composing music. Next, Terry’s scope of responsibility is writing lyrics. Are there any misunderstandings between you and him?

Actually, these roles aren’t as clear as you think, Terry has demoed 4 songs for the new InSomnius Dei album, fully written by him, and they are just great I think, very dark heavy and obscure, I can’t wait to get to work on them. Terry and myself really don’t have misunderstandings as we have a very open friendship and find it quite easy to talk about our musical visions together.

Once The Eternal has colaborated with Firebox, so I guess that when you were thinking of release your debut album the label choice was rather obvious? Were there any other labels interested in signing contract with you? How do you evaluate cooperation with Finn?

Didn’t really shop it around so much, Firebox are well known for doom, so it seemed easy just to give it to them, I didn’t want to get to caught up in business, I just wanted to simply make an album and get it out, so it was a matter of ‘hey guys, here is the new InSomnius Dei album, do you want to release it..?’ the rest is history.

You describe yourself as ambient/doom/death metal band. I can agree with doom and death, but ambient? I must admit that I can’t find an ambient elements in your music.

Really depends on your interpretation of what abient is, for me songs like ‘For the Memories Of My Past’ & ‘Seven Burning Eyes’ have long drawn out ambient passages, not to mention ‘The Aftermath’ which is a 10 minute acoustic piece… this is all very ambient and very moody…so if you can find these elements maybe listen again. :)

On your website you mention Pink Floyd. With all due respect don’t you think that there’s no comparison between you and the PF? In my humble opinion such comparisons may be treated by people as a bit controversial?

Once again, a matter of opinion. Dave Gilmore is a big influence on me and I think if you listen to those things I mentioned above you can hear that influence in my playing, I don’t think its controversial to list one of your influences in your bio, not at all.

On the other hand, I guess that your music is often compare to My Dying Bride style. What do you think of it?

No we haven’t had this comparison yet as far as im aware of, but My Dying Bride play ‘Death Doom’ so I think any band in this style is bound to get that comparision eventually.

As for me, ”Absent” is the track which is the most similar to My Dying Bride music. Its atmosphere brings to my mind the most debatable album of MDB called ”34,788%...Complete”. What is your opinion on it? Do you accept such experiments within the limits of doom?

‘Absent’ for me is progressive doom, it has many different moods, once again MDB played no influence in ‘Absent’ or any song on ‘Illusions Of Silence’ I haven’t listened to MDB for about 10 years on any serious level. But I think experimenting with doom is very important, doom purists may disagree, but I refuse to sit around and repeat myself over and over again to make some doom purist happy. In that respect ”34,788%...Complete” was gret for MDB, but is seems they got scared and kind of head back to what was safe for them, which is a shame, I think they could have taken it a bit further.

While we are at ”Absent”. One of the main riffs of this track seems to be a spitting image of Black Sabbath song taken from their first album. Is this resemblance accidental?

Well. of course Sabbath gets a mention, they wrote the first ever doom riff, I didn’t write it with that in mind but I have no problem at all with it sounding like that! Great! :)

My favorite song of ID is ”Seven Burning Eyes”. You’ve perfectly mixed calm and hard, shrill parts in it. It’s also the most harsh track on the whole album. In my opinion you should follow this music direction. Would you?

Our direction will be much more obscure on the second album, heavier and more twisted. I can’t see us re-writing seven versions of ‘Seven burning eyes’ for the next album, once again, best to move forward and not repeate yourself. There will still be the theme of extremes, very hard and very soft, of course. I think that is very important to what makes InSomnius Dei what it is.

The two-minutes lasting track ”A Funeral Sky” seems to be an unfinished ”casual” idea. Why didn’t you broaden it in the full track, prepared in all detailes?

Because we didn’t want to, it was an interlude & said everything it need to say, it’s suposed to leave you on an ‘unfinished’ note so to speak, it was a complete statement in our opinion.

Why did you produce this material by yourself? Do you have problems with trust in people or you were simply sure that no one will do this better than you?

I produced this album myself because I enjoy production and what better way than to experiment with your own music. I am slowly building up my own studio and the next ‘InSomnius Dei’ album will be done in the same way. ‘Illusions Of Silence’ was my first album so it was of course not a million dollar sounding production. But I still think we produced something that got the ‘spirit’ of the music across. Already from this experience I know some things I will do different as far as the production is concerned for the next album, it’s basically an ongoing learning experience for me. We also used a lot of parts from the original demos, as raw as some of it is, the spirit is there and that is more important than anything I think.

You are also an author of the „Illusions of Silence” artwork. As far as I know, working on artworks was your shape of responsibility in Cryptal Darkness and The Eternal as well. Do you like to control the whole creating album proccess? Have you ever make any other artworks for other musicians or bands?

Yes, for my day job Im a graphic designer so it saves us a bit of money when album covers and websites are concerned. The last two ‘The Eternal’ albums I have outsourced the art to get a ‘fresh’ and different view on things, but I did do the art for ‘The Sombre Light Of Isolation’. I have done much art for other bands, I did the first Antimatter album “Saviour’ and also contributed the image of the ‘world’ on the Ion Album. I have done also a bunch of Australian bands including Virgin Black.

Is InSomnius Dei a one-time project or can I expect more materials in the future?

We have around 5 songs for the next InSomnius Dei album and just this week we have discussed the concept for the artwork, I think we are going to do something quite diferent for the art, we have this idea for an ‘Art Nouveau’ type thing. But it’s still in early stages and we won’t rush anything.

You are a singer, a guitar player and a drummer. Which role do you treat the most serious? What is your specialty – your voice, guitar or drums skills?

Songwriting is most important to me, I have no interest in being a virtuoso, I enjoy playing everything if it gets the point across, obviously my first instrument is guitar. But I also have a strong passion for drums, keyboards and bass and own all these instruments, I have at least 2 keyboards, a few basses and a bunch of guitars. Currently at home I only have electronic drums as I don’t live in a place I can make unlimited noise! Vocals is something that just happened by default, no one else could do it so I got stuck with it, its only recently I’ve started to enjoy it more and think im getting ok at it.

You’ve appeared as a guest on Ion’a album called ”Madre, Protegenos”. How do you recall the cooperation with Duncan Patterson?

Duncan is a dear friend of mine and working with him is great, im my opinion he is just a genius, a master songwriter and a master of the minimalistic approach. If anything, it was an honor to work with him and I hope to do so again on the next Ion album.

You’ve also an occasion to work with Darren White. Have you ever met together in person? I’ve heard that he was a person with difficult character. Is it true or just malicious gossip?

Darren stayed at my house in Melbourne for a few weeks when we did ‘Remembrance Scar’s’ together & he was a lovely guy. He also performed some old Anathema’s classics with us at what was to be the first ‘The Eternal ‘ Show. We managed to hook up again and he performed ‘Sleepless’ with us in England in 2004 I think. I think its all malicious gossip as the metal scene is so famous for. Daz is just a big loveable Hippy and a great guy, hope I have the chance to catch up with him and his lovely wife again some time soon.

In the past you were active member of Paramaecium and Desolate Eternity. Now you are the session musiciian in Virgin Black. Those projects are classified as christian bands. Is the concept of ID christian, too?

I have associated with some christian musicians over the years, mostly because I don’t care about what people’s beliefs are, I think it is irrelevant to the music directly, unless they are preaching. I am not a christian, never was and never will be. So none of the music I make is religious in any way…I think in InSomnius Dei, Terry touches on some buddhist ideas with his lyrics, but we are by no means a religious band, we are very interested in ideas and philosophies, we like the idea that InSomnius Dei lyrics can make you think about the world and your own life, but we have no interest in forcing any beliefs down anyone’s throats.

The Australian doom metal scene has never been especially extensive, but with bands like for example Disembowelment, Mournful Congregation, Elegeion and finally Cryptal Darkness or InSomnius Dei you definitely have no reason to be ashamed of it, don’t you think?

I don’t consider myself to be part of any scene, I think this is very counter-productive to my creativity. I guess all these bands are recognized in the international doom scene, so we have surely contributed something to the international ‘scene’ if you wish to look at it like that.

Perhaps this question shouldn’t be asked, but for the average European man, who has never flown out the Continent, Australia brings to mind only great sunny weather, sandy beaches, beautiful girls and surfing. Is there really a space for dark and melancholic music?

Well I can tell you now, if you where dumped in the middle of the desert in Australia, you would become pretty depressed very quickly! But seriously, I live in Melbourne, this is no tropical paradise, winter is here and its cold, rainy and misty everyday, I am wearing a scarf and gloves as we speak in my home haha… some parts of Australia are more tropical but Melbourne is not! Gets very warm in the summer but we have a nasty windy winter!

In just five short years, Soilwork have released five critically acclaimed albums and progressed further than anyone could have possibly imagined. Throughout all the changes, however, Soilwork manage to continue to keep intensity, melody, and atmosphere at the top of their priority list. Following the success of last year's record, "Natural Born Chaos," Soilwork are back, without Devin Townsend, to prove not only that they can do it on their own, but that they can do it better. I recently spoke to vocalist Speed Strid on the band’s new direction, upcoming tours, their new video, and more...

Adam Block


2002 was an incredibly busy year for you guys. You released an album, made your first video, which received quite a lot of television airplay, toured like crazy, and ended up starting to record another album by years end. You sold more copies of "Natural Born Chaos" than all your previous records and it also landed the number one spot in Bravewords and Bloody Knuckles magazine. Congratulations on such a successful year!

Thank you very much man. Last year was hectic as you said. We did a US tour and the video recording, the European tour, and the Japanese tour as well. Somewhere in between those tours we managed to write new material and we received a lot of inspiration from Devin Townsend being in the studio with him. I think that Peter wrote like three new songs directly after the recording of "Natural Born Chaos." As long as we find the inspiration and have the time there is no reason to slow down I guess.

How cool was it to know that you have a video out there and that people are seeing it on television? Have you been able to see it on the airwaves yet?

Well, I haven't seen it on the channels because I do not have MTV2 or MuchMusic so that sucks. But anyways the video is very cool and I was very happy to hear that it got airplay on both MuchMusic and MTV2. Unfortunately, it didn't get airplay on Swedish television. They said yes but nothing happened so maybe this time. I am sure we will get airplay this time in Sweden as well.

Many people thought with the quick pace of making your new record, "Figure Number Five," that it might have been rushed and in effect would not have had a significant progression from your previous effort. How important was it to you guys, even though you felt you had found your sound with "Natural Born Chaos," not to just make the same album over again?

Well, it's hard to say. I guess we just went with the flow. We received a lot of inspiration from the touring last year and also from Devin Townsend and the recording. We also got inspiration from ourselves and "Natural Born Chaos" because it is always like that when you're coming out of the studio. You say well maybe we could have done it like this so maybe on the next album. So I guess we just went with the flow and we have rehearsed our asses off to make a great album. As long as we are 100% happy about the pre-production that we always do, then let's record it.

So in the little time that you had you didn't feel rushed at all?

I don't think so actually. We were discussing about this and we had band meetings and so on listening to the material, the pre-recordings, and so one. Everyone was 100% happy about the material so I don't think we rushed at all actually because we have released five albums in five years so I guess this is the way we like to work.

With Devin Townsend out of the picture this time how important was it to show to everyone that you could still do without him. Did it push you even harder? With the vocal performance on this record, I should say it did!

Yeah absolutely! We actually asked Devin to produce this album as well but he was on tour at that moment unfortunately. I still think it's very good that we showed to people that we could do it ourselves. There have been a lot of stupid rumors on the internet about Devin doing all the harmonies on the clean vocals and some of the riffs... blah blah blah. So I think it is a very good thing for us to show to those people that we could do it ourselves.

Plus it seems that there is even more complexity and layers that go into the vocal harmonies this time around as well...

Yeah and I think that the clean vocals are a bit more varied. On "Natural Born Chaos" there are mostly clean vocals on the choruses. On this one, there are clean vocals in the verses and also in other parts of the songs. Overall, it is a much more varied album I think with the guitars and the vocals. I think that the screaming vocals are better than before as well.

That was definitely one of the first things I noticed about the screaming vocals in particular. They seem to be a bit harsher this time around.

I actually recorded the vocals with a hand mic. I think that I should have done this before because I received a lot more power when I was recording the vocals. I could lie down on the floor and scream like hell. When you have a stationary mic you cannot move really but with this hand mic you can move around like you are on stage. So it is like a live gig so I receive a lot more power to do the screaming vocals.

I noticed that the clean vocal styles are also a bit more mixed on this album like they were on "A Predator's Portrait." Was this a goal of yours to keep them varied and not just have straight clean singing on each chorus?

I wanted to try out a lot of different types of vocal styles on this one. I always wanted it to be like a schizophrenic record vocal wise. There are harsh melodic vocals, clean vocals, falsetto vocals, so there is a lot of different types of stuff. I guess the System of a Down (Serj) singer inspired me because he is using a lot of different types of voices and I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I could do everything. It is almost like a schizophrenic album when it comes to the vocals and I think that is pretty cool. It's pretty chaotic.

Some people thought that you had softened up and yet the title track, 'Figure Number Five,' boasts your most intense vocals to date.

I guess we wanted to do a more brutal song. I like to do those Chuck Billy vocals because they worked out really well on 'Follow The Hollow.' We wanted to take it a step further and I think it sounds great.

Yeah, overall I think "Figure Number Five" is a lot more dynamic and a bit more intense than "Natural Born Chaos"...

I actually expected the album to be a bit softer but it actually went out even heavier I think. There is a perfect balance on this new album.

What was the inspiration for writing a song like 'Departure Plan'? It is a pretty big well... departure for you guys musically.

That song is actually a song that Sven wrote like three years ago. We had a band meeting where he showed the song to everybody in the band. We thought to ourselves, "Hey! Does this sound like Soilwork? It's a very good song but... well... What the hell! Let's record it!" Now I think it sounds like Soilwork and I think it is the perfect breathing part in the middle of the album. Of course it was a very big challenge for everyone in the band to record this song especially me I guess. I am very used to having distorted guitars in the background when I am doing clean vocals. This time there was only like a Hammond organ and distorted drums in the background so it was a very big challenge for me. At first I couldn't listen to the song because I wasn't used to hearing my voice that way, but I like this song very much. I am very proud of it.

So, if it came to something like this in the future, do you think you would try something like this again?

Well yeah I think so. This song is not symbolizing that we're going only clean vocals in the future because the screaming vocals are a very big part of Soilwork. We will always keep the screaming vocals. However, we always want to have a big challenge when we're entering the studio. That is very important for us and we are not afraid to try out new stuff. We get a lot of different influences and I think we are very objective when it comes to music. I think there are a lot of people that can relate their daily lives to Soilwork's music.

The lyrics for 'Departure Plan' appear to be about a friend overcoming suicide. Is this a personal song for you?

It's very personal. Maybe it is the most personal song on the album actually. It is about my girlfriend but we are kind of more like friends. We are not really together but at the same time we are, if you understand what I mean. She has gone through the gates of hell so I am supporting her. It is not like a love song. It is more like a 'rise up' song. It is very important to me.

Then would you say that the whole album is a pretty personal record for you?

Well, I think it is like a continuation of "Natural Born Chaos." It is pretty much socially realistic and about the victims of society.

The record seems to have more of an emphasis on keeping the songs tight, short, and catchy. The average song length is a little over 3 minutes. What is the mindset when writing songs nowadays? Do you guys enjoy writing more immediate type of songs? If anything it takes me back to your earlier days when the songs were also a bit shorter.

Yeah, that is true. These days we like to make pretty short songs. If you get five minutes into it, then it gets kind of boring and bit too technical and stuff. Now we will make a short song with some technical parts. It always comes kind of naturally for us. Even though there are riffs sometimes where it is like okay this is a simple riff and then there are people who tell us, "Oh this is so technical!" We don't realize it. We like to write songs in a very easy way I guess. We just concentrate on every riff to make the best possible balance between all of the instruments. We build up the songs very equally I think. We do not like to make a part in the middle that is two minutes long with technical stuff...

Yeah that was the way it was two albums ago...

Yeah especially on "A Predator's Portrait."

There is also a bit more keyboard parts this time around. What apart from Sven's initiation into the band prompted you to want to incorporate more keyboards into your sound instead of keeping them to serve the purpose for the atmosphere only?

Well, he joined the band a couple months before the recording of "Natural Born Chaos." I guess that album was more like an experiment to try Sven in the studio but this time we gave him free hands to do whatever he wanted to do. He worked a lot with the keyboards and tried different types of things with them.

As a band though, do you still, in the future, be a little bit more protective as far as allowing them to get a little too up front or is that not a concern for you?

Well that is hard to say because we are pretty open-minded when it comes to keyboards. On this album there are a bit more samples, loops, and stuff especially on 'Overload.' We want to keep giving Sven free hands to do whatever he wants to do with the keyboards because he is a very skilled musician. He has a lot of cool visions when it comes to music.

What is the meaning if any behind the title "Figure Number Five"?

With "Figure Number Five," I am referring to the people who are the fifth wheel of society. The album is pretty much about victims of society that are not allowed to speak or have their own opinion. In general, it is like a tribute to people who always have to step aside for the upper class.

Your CD will include a bonus disc of older material for the European release. Are these tracks from the original demo or reworked versions of old songs?

They are from the original demo. There have been a lot of people asking about the demo that we got signed for called "In Dreams We Fall Into The Eternal Lake." It also includes a two-track demo that we recorded after this demo for promotion. There is 'Demon In Veins' with different vocals. That song is actually called 'Wake Up Call.' The other track is another version of 'Steelbath Suicide,' which is actually better than the one on the album I think.

Is there any chance of this bonus disc getting released worldwide?

We heard from Jill from Nuclear Blast and they are going to release it in the States as well!

What was it like recording the video for 'Rejection Role'? How funny has it been to hear the rumors of an In Flames and Soilwork fight on the set of the video?

That was actually one of the In Flames members who posted that message to make fun of the whole thing. It was a lot of fun to record the video. The In Flames guys are in our video and vice versa. The videos are similar and we recorded the live shots at the same club. We just used a different background. We act like rivals in the video. We are doing drive bys while we throw water balloons at each other. We are just kind of making fun of everything. It will probably receive a lot of attention because the videos are kind of linked together. We are making fun of the fact that In Flames and Soilwork are always getting compared. It is in response the people saying that In Flames sounds like Soilwork and Soilwork sounds like In Flames. We are very good friends so we just wanted to have a lot of fun with this. I guess we just wanted to do something different. A metal video is always supposed to be like five angry guys in a warehouse with chains hanging everywhere just like [laughs] 'As We Speak' I guess. I suppose we just wanted to make fun of that at the same time.

So is still basically a live performance video?

Well that too, but of course it is mixed with the drive bys and water balloons [laughs].

[laughs] That sounds funny. I cannot wait to see it!

Yeah it is so fucking cool...

How excited are you guys about hitting the road with Children of Bodom for the European tour? How much of the set will be dedicated to old material. Will you guys have a longer set time maybe to play more songs?

We only have like 45 minutes on stage. That means we have to concentrate on our two latest albums. Even though we will do "The Chainheart Machine" and a couple songs from the "A Predator’s Portrait" album, there will not be any from "Steelbath Suicide." There is no time to. We have to concentrate on our newest album though because it is very much about promotion as well. Hopefully we can play a little bit longer in the States.

Speaking of the States, do you guys have any plans yet?

We are coming to the States in July...

Apart from the European tour any word on hitting South America or Australia. You guys have quite a following in those two countries I hear...

All I can say is that the manager is dealing with South American and Australian promoters so I hope there is an upcoming tour in the fall. I really do hope so!

That's all I have for you today Speed. Are there any final words you would like to give to your fans?

This is our best album so far. It is a cliché but we really feel that way. It is the perfect balance between intensity, melody, and atmosphere: all that Soilwork is about. So go check out the album!