We're incredibly proud to present the one and only Vildhjarta as our
Artist of the Week! This Swedish metal unit has bent minds and shattered
ear drums with their brand of dark, forward thinking Progressive Metal.
This is especially true of their latest release "Thousands of Evils"
(read our review here).
In honor of this, we're currently holding a contest in association with the band and ProgHippie. Enter for a chance to win a "thall" shirt or a "thall" sticker! Learn how to earn your chance below! It's actually quite simple.
We also had the opportunity to catch up with guitarist / songwriter Daniel
Bergström and pull an in-depth interview with the band (conducted by our
writer with this tattoo!). Read up and learn by clicking here!
BONUS
1. Like the post for a second vote
2. Comment on the post for a third vote
This contest ends Tuesday 11/5 at 9 PM EST!
*We will contact the winners.
*By participating, you acknowledge that you completely release Facebook of all responsibility. This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Faceb
We're incredibly proud to present the one and only Vildhjarta as our Artist of the Week! This Swedish metal unit has bent minds and shattered ear drums with their dark, forward thinking brand of Progressive Metal. This is especially true of their latest release "Thousands of Evils" (read our review here).
We had the opportunity to catch up with guitarist / songwriter Daniel Bergström and pull an in-depth interview with the band (conducted by our writer with this tattoo!). Read up, learn, and blast the music below.
AD - Ahoy from the fanb0is at TheCirclePit. How are they hanging guys?
DB - They be 0’s are trippin like baaoows on the .66 mate
AD - “Thousands of Evils" just released. Give us a little backstory to the album, any memorable anecdote you would like to share from the days you spent writing the album and in the studio?
DB - We went through alot of personal issues this time around, very much because of the concepts we had chosen to dwell into so i guess for some members of le band it’s a pretty personal chunk of music. We of course had our fair share of haardfests (with icelandic pronunciation) too.
AD - Could you list out the gear you had used this time around and how it influenced the recording procedure for the album?
DB - I don’t know all the gear we used but we always try to keep it as simple as possible.
It’s also the first time we worked with an outside producer for the mix (Christian Svedin) who also mastered it. We’ll probably continue working like that.
AD - So how does the song-writing process unfold for you guys? Do you still compose bit by bit and assist eachother via e-mail at the same rate as before? With chops as supreme as you lot when do you realize that you have enough instrumental wizardry to rock our socks off? Do you follow the policy of “less is more”or do you keep working on a composition till it’s pushing its final form?
DB - Theres really no formula we follow. One thing we always end up doing is scrapping alot however which often results in songs being stripped to the core, this tendency sort of got out of hands on this ep which lead to some interesting songs i think. It’s like we slaughter the riffs til you end up only having a few per song that you work around. Same goes for the vocals.
This time around we cut down alot on the ambiences too, trying to keep things as sterile as possible.
AD - You must have a lot of ideas and material that does not find its way into the album, do you usually wait for a composition where the said idea would pan out better or do you just plain discard it as something that will in all probability never fit on a Vildhjarta album?
DB - We never really count things out i guess it’s just more inspiring to keep writing new things.
The idea of having an acoustic song is one we’ve always had for example, we have alot of material like that we just havnt gotten around to using.
AD - How would you describe Vildhjarta’s journey so far from the days of “Omnislash” to “Thousands of Evils”? What changed in between? How do you define the transition from breakneck mosh anthems like “When The Sky Drops Dead” to calculative, headbanger-friendly compositions like “Regnar Bensin"?
DB - Our music is more sad now then before i guess, which i like. It’s not like we rule out ever playing songs like when the sky drops its just not the type of music we are into right now.
We use alot slower tempos now and our songs mostly consists of 4/4 drums which i guess you can tell by now we are suckers for ^^
AD - “Måsstaden” was a concept album with a story that would attract the cult horror/fantasy lover in every Metalhead; guessing from the album title and artwork “Thousands of Evils” has an equally enthralling (“enthalling”) story behind it too. If so, would you narrate it for us?
DB - It doesnt stick to a red line like måsstaden did, like it has no story you follow. It’s more overworked ideas that got scaled down alot, stripping things down to the core as i mentioned before. The title thousands of evils originates from a russian drink but we dont really go into explaining the things we write about.
AD - Your music videos act as quite the thought-provoking expansion set to the concepts you portray in your music; have you planned anything as such for promoting “Thousands of Evils”?
DB - We’d like to make a video for thousands but we’ll see what happens. Theres also been interest for playthrough videos so we’ll try to get around doing some of that too.
AD - Releasing new material after a gap of almost two years to fans with such monumental expectations would be a pressure that would drive many up the wall. How did Vildhjarta handle that as a collective unit of supremely skilled musicians?
DB - We dont really feel we have anything to live up to, we’ve released music before and if people liked that they may like our new stuff too, some don’t and i guess that makes sense you know.
We arent really into spending alot of time on promotion to get our name out, or to grow something bigger. Right now theres a demand for us to tour and as long as people wants to support us doing that we’ll keep doing it.
AD - How outspoken or otherwise are you when it comes to subjects like genre-bashing on the Internet and biasing across genres or lumping bands into specific genres?
DB - We never engage in things like that i guess, theres just no interest for us to bash or hate on anyone, or to defend anything. People need to chill out and just enjoy each other instead.
AD - While we are on subjects related to the Internet, “Thousands of
Evils” was leaked much prior to its release date; how do you feel about
the impact of Internet on the music industry, besides the obvious
“helped-us-reach-new-fans”and “killed-our-business”stance; as
professional musicians do you believe that there is a grey area in this
matter?
DB - To me theres no grey area about it.
Copyright laws for music is crap for the music but i cant really get
into this. Our EP leaked because someone was interested in hearing it,
it’s pretty much that simple.
AD - How would you react to the fact that some of your fans (including myself) consider you a “Thinking-man’s Metal band” that doesn’t just depend on aggression and heaviness to get their point across? Do you usually draw inspiration from established thinking-man’s-Metal-bands the likes of ISIS and Tool?
DB - I’ve only heard a little of ISIS and they’re cool, i like some of Tools songs and i can def see why some people are crazy into their music. We do like concepts and i guess we have that in common with Tool for example. We like to think of concepts for our music especially now that we are working with rickard westman for the art whos fantastic, he inspires us with everything he sends back to us.
AD - With bands popping in every nook and corner there are tons of “one-hit-wonders”or bands that completely fail to strike a chord with its target audience. As a band that has permeated cultures and nations as far away as India and beyond in such a short span of time, what would your suggestion be to the nascent musicians?
DB - Keep making the music you feel the need to make!
AD - Did all of you always plan to be a musician once you got into touch with the Metalhead inside you or did it happen gradually with the progression in your respective area of expertise?
DB - We dont really call ourselves musicians i guess, we do music but we’re not trying to make a living off of it or have the need to show things off. Right now we are releasing music through a label and doing live shows, tours and ofc you learn alot of things how the industry works when you do that as well as how to travel. We really do like playing live at times so hopefully we can continue to do that for a bit. Planning is something we are terribly bad at.
AD - What’s next for Vildhjarta? Where do you wish to tour next?
DB - We are going to north america next week for 6 weeks after that we have some offers we are looking at so there will be more tours we’ll see when. Id love to do soviet again and perhaps another eu round. We always write music and we’ve had a concept laying around for long we are picking up again so there will be new music too.
AD - Have you given a thought to collaborating with other musicians for any of your material? Is there any such possibility in the future?
DB - We’ve done it on both måsstaden and thousands. thousands of evils. We worked with a friend of ours named Patrik Marchente who did the orchestral pieces. More collaborations on thousands were planned but failed in the end. Theres many people id like doing music with but it’s hard to find time and space for it.
AD - As a budding musician, I often face difficulty in balancing the melodic and heavy side to a composition and find myself listening to Post-rock artists or a Death Metal band, respectively, waiting for inspiration to strike. How do you balance it so easily?
DB - Inspiration is hard and i have to say im alot less inspired now then i was few years ago, it’s hard to find, not that there arent people around making music thats insanely good its just hard to find that very thing that makes you go ffffffffffffffffff you know. Meshuggah have done it many times for me and i keep coming back to them, which i know the rest of the guys in the band do too.
As far as balance go, i like keeping things so simple its silly even tho it can be a massive wall of sound, or just something soloing quietly.
AD - Will Vildhjarta always be dealing with subjects like psychosis/inner-turmoil/fantasy or do you visualize writing songs about broader topics like war, politics and even religion for that matter?
DB - We have involved all of those concepts but we havnt singled any of them out and focused on it. I dont really see us doing an album about war, or displaying some political stance or religion hatred. We just analyze it, accept it and try to leave it eventually, we try not to tell people what to do and how to think in the things we write about. Music is the dance of emotions and you have to be thoughtful with it.
AD - Which Non-Metal bands/artists would we find on your playlist at the moment?
DB - Lately theres been alot of doors and messiaen, theres a swedish band named dungen you should really check out. i also keep coming back to gaming music, final fantasy, metal gear etc.
AD - Sweden’s responsible for some of the most respectable names in Metal that always draw gasps of awe from most; how’s the Heavy Metal scenario there right currently? What about the Hardcore circuit there?
DB - Im not the right person to ask i think, meshuggah doesnt get the attention they deserve id say.
sweden seems to make alot of music in alot of genres and thats cool lovely country too come chill dawg
AD - Which new artists would you recommend us listening to? With the end of the year approaching soon, what would your Top 10 albums/EP for the year be?
DB - If you like our music you should check out humanitys last breath
AD - This is probably the part where all of us erupt in giant roars of “THALL” Would you like to add anything else to that?
One of Sweden’s several stellar Heavy Metal exports are Progressive Methall/Djent maestros Vildhjarta. With innumerable accolades and cult followings to their name the band needs no introduction given their recent contributions to modern Progressive Metal in the form of their ground-breaking full length debut “Måsstaden”. The “Thousands of Evils" EP, which has been in the making for the past year has finally seen the light of the day and needless to say it is some of the best material produced this year. Here’s why: One of the several features that seem to have been newly inducted into Vildhjarta’s body of work is their decision to write album titles in their mother tongue; beyond the initial difficulty, it grew on me fast. Besides, it was just plain fun to reply to questions like “What song are you listening to?” with “Dimman” and ”Regnar Bensin”.
“Thousands of Evils” opens with “Introduction:Staos”. With a fair amount of mystical atmospheric soundscapes to pave the path for what would be an obvious spinal assault. The track follows the typical Vildhjarta template of heavy down-tuned riffage, alternated with clean, reverberated guitar leads. I had the pleasure of being marveled by David Linkvist’s drum chops long before, but in my honest opinion he hadn’t garnered much of the spotlight given that there were three guitarists on board. Perhaps that’s one of the perks of being in a Progressive Metal band: The drive to outshine each other, vying to pique the critical listener’s interest creates enough room for excellent compositions. “Langstmedan”, the 2nd exhibits another new found quality, the employment of clean-spoken vocals. Not that the clean-spoken vocals were not there on "Måsstaden", but the band seems to have effectively emphasized its contribution in the right places, to add a different flavour to Bladin and Adel’s dual vocal assault. And it is also serves as a holler to the good old days of “Omnislash”.
“Dimman” is something of a kind that has never been produced from Camp Vildhjarta before. A depressive acoustic melody, coupled with a few bars of piano music spells a refreshing change for most who find the constant pummeling of dissonant down-tuned riffs clichéd, although there’s plenty of that to round off the track. “En mörk vit lögn” brings to mind old favourites like “When The Skies Drop Dead”. However most would notice the remarkable shift in dynamics where they have replaced unrelenting aggression with carefully crafted technical songwriting.
From a production quality aspect, the EP has a more gritty sound than its predecessor. Although I believe it was somewhat intentional keeping in mind the dark ambiance the band is so good at capturing. While a few peers kept complaining about how the tracklist missed the flow or cohesion, I chose to give the band the benefit of doubt; if “Thousands of Evils” is indeed what the band achieved with a handful of discarded ideas then it is quite the gem of a release. And not in spite of a few minor frowns here and there I’m not going to be the pompous douche that calls it “A flawed gem”. “Thousands of Evils” is as good as an EP gets and is the next reasonable step that a band of Vildhjarta’s weight class should take. It also captures on a canvas their gradual maturity for addressing several issues that were highlighted by fans and pundits alike when the cacophony that followed the “Måsstaden” release, died down. Exhibit A: Inclusion of a track like “Intermezzo” and all the elements it is composed of.
“Thousands of Evils” can be looked upon as a demonstration of the gradient in the band and its comprising member’s respective chops. “Omnislash” was a shot in the dark at something dark and twisted but had the same verse-chorus-bridge structuring as most bands follow. “Måsstaden”, for the lack of a better verb, rectified this in the sense that the structuring became more fluid. There were oodles of guitar layers crawling out of the woodwork which was all good and fun till it went on a collision course with the vocals, resulting in certain peaks which were somewhat ruined because neither the vocals nor the guitar parts were intelligible. “Thousands of Evils” remarkably takes care of this minute flaw, which only fans like myself who have devoured the album spin after spin, hour after hour could point out. The EP grants more room for all the instruments to breathe, you can tell apart who plays what and when it kicks in. The guitars do their own kind of magic which forms as the efflorescent base for all the instruments; the fading in and out of the layers serves as a perfect cue for the piano samples to find their way into the spotlight. The darkest of passages are punctuated by vocalists Daniel Adel and Vilhelm Bladin’s dual assault.
Vildhjarta have been under a certain amount of “niched” scrutiny owing to the fact that half their audience had dubbed them as Meshuggah Lite and the other half were left picking “smithereen-ed” pieces off their jaw off the floor (Guess which crowd you or, for that matter, I belonged to?). The amalgamation of these two poles-apart inferences has led them to carve a segment in the Progressive Metal community that is uniquely their own. No one quite writes, dark, brooding, melancholic Progressive Metal like this band. You want melancholic bands; sure there are tons of them from the Goth/Doom camps that will keep you busy for months. But the ingredients that make a Vildhjarta composition uniquely Vildhjarta are something which cannot be re-hashed for someone else, even with the same instrument, let alone belonging to the same genre. The ship has probably sailed in the “beating around the bush” department, nevertheless, summing it up, Vildhjarta are set on the next chapter of their journey, the next gradual step. The same way they made “Måsstaden” different from “Omnislash” but still ridiculously good; “Thousands of Evils” serves the same to their oeuvre. It is quite possible that you may have already inferred that I lack the right words to describe this gem, but I’ll attempt to put it this way: “Thousands of Evils” rages and fumes and stomps through a good 20+minute long spiral road in five different directions. The only thing common between the record and its predecessor is the same foreboding in the guitar tones, the same unmerciful chugging riffs- but then again, it’s a “DIFFERENTLY DARK” fable.
After releasing a world crushing debut album towards the end of 2011,
Sweden's very own Vildhjarta plan to make a highly anticipated return this year.
They will follow up the dark, evil grooves of "Måsstaden" very soon...
Their upcoming concept EP, "Thousands Of Evils", is slated to be released October 29th
through Century Media Records. They have been working hard on the
release for at least the better part of a year. Being the perfectionists they are,
it took a little while but the EP is officially complete!
And now the pre-orders are officially available! Grab yours here. It will primarily be a digital release but the EP is also available as a 12" with a limited run of 1,000 copies available worldwide. Get it while you still can!
So
far, Vildhjarta have released the incredible "Thousands Of Evils"
concept art along with some very awesome teasers in support of the EP (listen to them here).
More importantly, they've released two tracks in support of the
upcoming release. It's highly recommended you feast your ears and mind
on "Dimman" and "Regnar Bensin" down below. Stay tuned for much more
where that came from. Vildhjarta is back!
After releasing a world crushing debut album towards the end of 2011,
Sweden's very own Vildhjarta plan to make a highly anticipated return this year.
They will follow up the dark, evil grooves of "Måsstaden" very soon...
Their upcoming concept EP, "Thousands Of Evils", is slated to be released October 29th
through Century Media Records. They have been working hard on the
release for at least the better part of a year. Being the perfectionists they are,
it took a little while but the EP is officially complete!
So
far, Vildhjarta have released the incredible "Thousands Of Evils"
concept art along with some very awesome teasers in support of the EP (listen to them here). More importantly, they've released two tracks in support of the upcoming release. It's highly recommended you feast your ears and mind on "Dimman" and "Regnar Bensin" down below. Stay tuned for much more where that came from. Vildhjarta is back!
There are so many great tours going down in the next couple months. Here's another one worth adding to the list...
Veil of Maya will be devastating the United States alongside Structures, Northlane, Vildhjarta (first time playing in the United States), and Here Comes The Kraken! The tour will start up in November and end in December. Check the dates on the flyer below, listen to some tunes, and grab your tickets! We'll see you in the pit.
There's a new Vildhjarta track on the loose. "Dimman" serves as one of the most unique additions to their discography. This is clear on the first listen as the majority of song is delivered through acoustic means along with other interesting accents. I expected many things to come from a new Vildhjarta track, but this was totally unexpected (in the best way possible). And I'm sure they'll unleash a few more surprises before it's all said and done.
They will follow up the dark, evil grooves of "Måsstaden" through their upcoming concept EP, "Thousands Of Evils", to be released through Century Media Records. It will be... evil. So far, they've released the incredible "Thousands Of Evils"
concept art along with some very awesome teasers and now "Dimman" in support of the EP. Stay tuned for much more!
The thing that sucks about living in States is that Europe gets all the great shows. And the problem with living in Europe is that the US gets all the great shows. If you catch my drift... You can't win either way.
For this reason I did not personally attend Euroblast 8 but there's no denying the line-up was insanely good. There was also an incredible tour alongside the main event with Scar Symmetry among others. So today we're gonna be taking a look back at some of the incredible sets that were played at the main festival itself along with prepping you for this year's Euroblast 9.
Euroblast 8 was stacked with names like After The Burial, Tesseract, Jeff Loomis, War From A Harlots Mouth, Vildhjarta, Skyharbor, Chimp Spanner, Monuments, Circle of Contempt, The Algorithm, Agent Fresco, Destiny Potato, and the list goes on... Check out footage from the bands down below! Also included possibly one of the coolest festival trailers ever made, featuring music from the incredible Akeldama.
Currently the line-up for this years festival is being announced bit by bit. There have already been several awesome bands announced including Benea Reach, Mnemic, Twelve Foot Ninja, The Omega Experiment, Cyclamen, Tardive Dyskinesia, etc. You can check the rest of the bands / get all kinds of info here. This years festival will be huge!
There is some terribly crushing stuff arising from Sweden very soon. After conquering the world with their 2011 debut album “Masstaden”, Vildhjarta is now working on a new EP entitled "Thousands of Evils". It's slated to be released sometime this year. You can check out our official preview here.
And if the two previous teasers didn't arouse you enough, here is another small preview of the new material they've been working on. It's definitely gonna make you hungry for more! The new sample endures the well-known dark and unbelievably heavy sound of the band but we still don't hear any vocal lines just like in the previous videos. Nevertheless, it definitely looks insane and only time will tell what amazing musical expedients will be found in this new release. Time to get stoked and prepare your faces to be melted by some new THALL! Stay tuned for more news about this huge release.
This
is where the THALL begins... Okay, I know this might look like an easy one
and you may say "Ooh this is not that great an exploration of metal!". But people need to know that there's a lot more greatness coming out of
Sweden than just Meshuggah and Vildhjarta. After Vildhjarta took the
metal underground by storm with their debut album "Masstaden" in 2011, a
lot of bands from Sweden put themselves in the wake of that dark and huge
sound, frequently entwined by deep atmospheric passages. It spawned a large
movement which didn't develop around a single city, but rather grew up
everywhere in the country. Ehm...if you follow this website I hope I'm not supposed
to introduce names like Meshuggah and Vildhjarta, so I'm going straight
to the ones you may not have heard of.
One of the most followed bands of this style is
currently Humanity's Last Breath, frequently referred to as "the second
Vildhjarta". They've already released 2 EPs you can stream / buy on Bandcamp. But in 2012 they released a
new song called "Animal" to show everyone the new direction they were
taking with their upcoming album. It actually sounded like a deathcore
version of Vildhjarta, a bit more aggressive and straightforward. They'll
be releasing this new album in 2013 and it's looking to be one of the
bigger releases of the year (check out some samples on their Soundcloud
page here, especially the track in which they test their new HLB Etherial
Guitar) and they're also one of the first bands confirmed to play at
Euroblast 9! Check 'em out.
Another relatively known band is Means End. They're recognized for being the new project of Vildhjarta's former vocalist Robert Luciani. This guy is able to deliver
amazing growls and perfect clean vocals. Means End have only released a 3
tracks EP so far which was incredibly badass. And they also
promised to deliver some new stuff very soon. Definitely look forward to that! And don't forget their EP is available for FREE! You can download it right here.
And
now, let's dig a bit further into the underground. Jonnah is a good
band coming from Hudiksvall (same city as Vildhjarta). They've been getting a good
number of followers through two small
EPs packing huge sounds. They recently recruited a new vocalist
and are working on some hot new material at the moment. Give 'em a
listen on their Soundcloud page and remember that both of their releases are available for free!! Download them right here, right now!
Gothenburg's
band Limbo is another act you should keep your eyes on. They don't have
any official releases yet but they uploaded some really cool material on
their Soundcloud. They have two amazing vocalists along with a lot of talent
and creativity to boot. Give a listen to their song "With Eyes Wide Shut" and to
the snippets they've uploaded on Soundcloud and start following them!
Behindert
is another artist you need to check out. It's a one man project from
Orebro in which a single guy, Andrè, literally plays all the instruments. He has some really impressive music on his Soundcloud where you can also
find some music from his electronic project Mis Trigger.
We
also recently presented another crazy band from Stockholm called MTWHDTDTIC
(Maybe That's Why Humans Drink The Darkness That Is Coffee). Their abnormally long name matched by a
crazy mix of ambidjent and math-metal will immediately strike you. You better get stoked for their new release "Dum" coming out
in July. Should be awesome. Meanwhile, give a listen to their first release "Window To The
World" on Bandcamp.
Something interesting about the rising "thall movement" is that most of these bands
still haven't released their debut / first album and yet they all have some new
incoming material. This means there's gonna be a lot of great stuff coming out of here in
the following years which may end up influencing the future of metal. And don't forget that Vildhjarta is also going to
release a new EP very soon! Check out our preview for "Thousands of Evils" right here. THALL.
Stay tuned for more explorations!! Next stop: Greece!
After releasing a world crushing debut album towards the end of 2011, Sweden's Vildhjarta plan to make a highly anticipated return this year. They will follow up the dark, evil grooves of "Måsstaden" through their upcoming concept EP, "Thousands Of Evils", to be released through Century Media Records. They have been working hard on the release for at least six months. And being the perfectionists they are, it may be a bit longer before the EP is officially complete.
So far, Vildhjarta have released the incredible "Thousands Of Evils" concept art along with two very awesome teasers in support of the EP. They just released the second teaser for a track apparently entitled "Regnar Bensen". Both previews are sounding THALL AS HELL. You can check out all of the above, below. Be sure to stay tuned for more on Vildhjarta!
Here are some of our most anticipated releases of 2013. In no particular order, this is a list of five bands with upcoming albums / EPs that will most likely land in 2013. We've also included the most recent music / announcements from each group, whether from upcoming or past releases. This is part one out of three. Let us know your most anticipated releases for the year!
We're incredibly proud to present the one and only Vildhjarta as our
Artist of the Week! This Swedish metal unit has bent minds and shattered
ear drums with their brand of dark, forward thinking Progressive Metal.
This is especially true of their latest release "Thousands of Evils"
(read our review here).
