ISOLE

Lost in thought

In my humble opinion Swedish ISOLE is one of the most original and unique bands within doom epic metal genre. I discovered their sad yet beautiful music last year, when I got a promo of band's third studio effort „Bliss Of Solitude”. Its unusual feeling, I mean especially that cold melancholy blended in a brilliant way with some amazing guitar passages and very emotional clean vocal parts of Daniel Bryntse fascinated me immediately. And still does, actually... A few days ago I had a nice chat with ISOLE's drummer Jonas Lindström. Hope you will enjoy reading about the new, very successful album of these Swedish doomsters entitled „Silent Ruins”.

-Hello ISOLE, welcome to Metal Portal! How are you doing? Is everything going fine?
Hi! We are a bit tired from the weekend in Greece, but except from that we are fine.

-What are the latest news from the band's camp? Has anything changed since your previous studio album „Bliss Of Solitude” hit the market? Will anything change after the release of your new album?
News, hmm. Well, we have some stuff going on, some releases I still can’t talk about. You´ll have to wait and see. We have a tour in April we really look forward to! Hopefully we will be able to do even more shows after the new release!

-Your brand new effort entitled „Silent Ruins” hit the stores just a few days ago. What are your general impressions concerning this release? „Silent Ruin” is a successor of fantastic „Bliss Of Solitude”. A worthy one? Are you pleased with the final outcome in one hundred percent?
I like the new album. It´s faster and more fun to play. It´s more well played and the sound is better. The sound is more proper for Isole than the sound on „Bliss” I think. But I´m a perfectionist so I´m of course not one hundred percent pleased. That´s what drives me to do better for each album. „Silent ruins” is in my opinion absolutely a worthy successor!

-„Silent Ruins” marks the fourth full length album in ISOLE's discography so you have already come a pretty long way. How has your music evolved over the years in your opinion? How does this progression look from your perspective?
We have come a long way since the 2005 release. But the band have been doing demos since 1991 so in that perspective we have not come that far. The music might be a bit more well written nowdays. That would be a normal evolution I think. We are older and more experienced and we have played together for some years now. The writing and arrangeing is not only a one mans job, we´re all a part of the outcome now.

-You have already proven yourselves as one of the most original bands within so called doom metal genre. I'd say ISOLE's music style has become pretty recognizable over the years. How have you managed to keep it so unique?
I don´t really know. Daniel, Christer and Henrik has been playing and writing songs together for a long time now, so it might be that. The combination of these three guys. They are not trying to write something commercial that will sell alot of albums, in that case we are in the wrong genre, but they write from their heart. After the 2005 release, when I joined, all of us started to take the band very seriously and we try to make the best out of everything. But still it is the same hearts writing the songs, so you could say we have refined the old „Forlorn” sound.

-Are you still inspired by some other acts from heavy doom epic scene or maybe in some way you try to distance yourselves from so called scene when it comes to writing for ISOLE, to keep the process as creative as possible?
Inspiration is always there of course, but we don't think that much about it. We are not trying to sound like some other band. As I said earlier the songs comes from our hearts. For me writing the drums it is „Opeth” that is the main influence I think. I really like the druming on „Watershed” with Martin Axenrot on drums.

-What do you think about conntemporary music scene? Not only metal but music scene in general. What separates true art from garbage?
Alot of the stuff you can hear on commercial radio today is real crap. You have one guy writing hundreds of songs and a bunch of artists picking a couple of songs from him. That is in my opinion not very „true art”. But there is still artists that are writing their own stuff and do the best they can. When it comes to those artists I´m not the one to judge if it´s „true art” or not.

-Doom metal music has never been really popular. On the other hand it has not died for so many years! What do you think about that phenomenon?
The genre is kind of special. It´s a bit like blackmetal, alot of that „true” stuff. Often the doom albums can be a bit hard to digest, and the genre is not really famous for its great productions.

-In my private opinion you have a special abillity to write sad, depressing anthems. Listening to your music sometimes I really feel like killing myself. OK, I'm kidding a bit but to be serious with you, it doesn't make me feel better. That's for sure. Is it your goal, to make your listeners feel a bit... unhappy?
Hehehe, isn’t that what doom is about? No, our goal is to make good music with lots of feelings!

-How do you as an artist connect with a listener? What methods and tools do you use to convey your messages?
Well, I´m a drummer so I try to play in an interesting way. Most people don´t listen to the drums, but there are some people who do so I try to do my best. I try to play dynamic, to follow the feelings in the music.

-Some time ago I had a nice talk with Aaron from MY DYING BRIDE. I asked him about things he hate the most when it comes to his band. And the answer was ”The thing that is most frightening for me is to undress emotionally on stage, to reveal my deepest emotions directly to the public. I truly hate it!”. What do you think about it? Have you ever had such problems?
I think that could be the same for me. I have a bit hard to really show it on stage. But I am working on it.

-OK, go back on track. Solemn, clean vocal parts combined with some special backing vocals really add a lot of depth and sophistication to ISOLE's sound. Your new album isn't an exception and vocals are definitely a very important part of that album. The most important one?
I can´t say one thing is the most important. Take away the guitars for example and you don't have Isole any more. All things on our albums are important to get the right feeling. But the vocals are absolutely a very important thing for Isole. It´s kind of a trademark for us with lots of vocal harmonies.

-Daniel's vocal manner, the way he use his voice reminds me of mighty Robert Lowe from SOLITUDE AETURNUS/ CANDLEMASS. How do you respond to this comparison? Is there any „objective truth” in it?
I have heard that one before. I don't think it´s that similar. You can always find similarities with other bands and artists etc. if you look for them. I don´t really understand why peolple always work so hard to find them.