HEAVEN SHALL BURN

Iconoclasts Revolt

- You’re not the only one. But let’s turn back to HSB. In all your brutality your stuff is damn melodic. How important is in your band melody? Would you describe this word as a key one?
Of course melody is important but the same is for other elements. Coming back to the question, if melody wouldn’t be so essential, we wouldn’t create such songs. Besides, very important for us is verbal expression. And catchy melody carries a text very well which helps people easier take what we mean.


- Probably the biggest surprise was those electronic beats in “Murderers of All Murderers”. Combination of techno rhythm and BOLT THROWER-like smashing riffs came off quite good. You prove that you aren’t afraid of less conventional solutions. Are there any boundaries of your creativity?
Definitely I’d never put reggae rhythms in our music. Here I’d establish a boundary. If it comes to electronics, it’s by all means ok. I’d expect even more experiments in the future. It’s always fun to try something new. As long as we’ll stay brutal there are no limits.

- You also turned to one of the hits of my youth. Where did you get the idea of covering “Black Tears”? Do you also have some school memories that you associate with EDGE OF SANITY?
Exactly. We’d never dare to cover the oldest works of EOS. They are too sacred to remake them. And this track presents a great period in EOS career. On “Purgatory…” there were death metal, slightly punk and even rock elements. This track is to show the excellent band to younger metalheads. I think that EOS never got the regard it deserved. So maybe at least to some extent we’ll contribute to their recognition with our remake. Besides, I’m a great fan of Swedish death metal - both older and from mid-90s. I really appreciate ENTOMBED and DISMEMBER. I love their eldest albums. I’d also name UNANIMATED, long-forgotten by many people. I also like DARK TRANQUILITY and IN FLAMES. Their latest works are cracking as well!

- Sweden is not the only Scandinavian country which are you attached to. However it isn’t hard to guess that you’re inspired by Swedish musicians, you also pay much attention to Danish sound engineers. Lately Jacob Hansen, now Tue Madsen?
That’s right. I don’t know what makes these guys so talented. But in fact they are one of the best experts on metal in Europe. Denmark is also not so far away from us so there are many sensible reasons for which we work with them. They are also great guys personally - very friendly, nice and by the way hard-working. To tell the truth there was a risk that working with Tue we will sound a bit predictably since he’s now occupied with many well-known bands. But in fact he only mixed this stuff. The sound of tracks was our work. If a band has its own character, work with Tue can only help to expose it.

- You’ve mentioned that lyrics are very important for you. And I don’t have any doubts about it. I know that writing texts you’re often inspired by e.g. literature. Where did you get inspiration from this time?
Most sources to my lyrics lie in historical books. But in the past I also got inspired by different works of art like e.g. paintings, poems or films. The concept of this album was to be something new. We didn’t want next realistic political history. We decided that fantasy approach would be something new and interesting to people. Some texts concern the separation of religious power from the political one. In a way, we divided the album basing on these two layers.

- The newest album is a concept. To what extent the historical base of lyrics determined the musical content?
Actually it only influenced the tracks’ order. But I must admit that lyrics didn’t have much influence on music. Maybe subconsciously only. I knew that a text is about something sad and so the composition could be more melodic or doom. But definitely it wasn’t intentional.

- And who is “Joel” from the seventh track’s title?
„Joel” isn’t a specific person. He symbolizes people who take money from others pretending to act on behalf of religion. For such people religious community is only a place to do a good business. This bible name symbolizes such attitude.

- The album’s subtitle indicates that there will be a continuation of themes initiated on „Part I: The Final Resistance”.
Textual concept of the second part is ready. When writing the first part I realized that this idea is too broad to present on just one album. Actually, maybe it won’t end on just 2 parts, maybe there’ll be the third as well. I still don’t know, however, if the second part will be our next album but surely we’ll come back to it in the future. All in all there’s nothing more metal than trilogies and stuff.

- Bringing text matters to an end I’d like to take back to your previous album. There is a song “Army” dedicated to Warsaw Uprising soldiers. Didn’t you have any troubles in your country? All in all you were singing about people fighting against Germany.
When I visited my friends in Poland and saw the Warsaw Uprising Museum I was deeply impressed with the courage and honour of those people. I wasn’t thinking in national categories at all. That being Germans we shouldn’t sing about it for some reasons. Those people were incredible! They were betrayed by Russians and exterminated by Germans. They knew they had no chances to win but still fought to the bitter end. Many people got interested with this subject. In German mass media and schools they talk about the ghetto uprising but little is said about the Warsaw one. People are surprised that this was the biggest uprising against the Nazis.