Belgian Black Metal veterans Enthroned have recently released their 6th full-length album ‘Xes Haereticum’ and thus I considered it time to contact them for a small chat. So I contacted guitarist Nornagest who answered a few of my questions…
Hails, how are you doing?
Fine, a bit sick though.
You have recently released a new album, titled ‘Xes Heareticum’. How have the reactions been so far?
Reactions have been in good, for many it’s our best album…
Could you tell us a little about how the new album came into being? Who is responsible for the writing of the music? And are you satisfied with the final results?
Yes, we are pretty satisfied it turned out like we wanted, the production gives the right atmosphere to the songs etc…
I mainly wrote the music, but also Sabathan and N.Daemon wrote some stuff and we did all the arrangements together. This album is a bit different, much more feeling, our emotions were really on a high level during the writing process, you can feel it.
It has something special compared to the previous releases…
The atmosphere on the new album reminds me a little of ‘Towards the Skullthrone…’, was this a deliberate step or did it just come naturally this way?
It came like this, I think it’s just a question of feeling, Enthroned’s black flame wasn’t dead… it just needed to be tickled a bit… Which doesn’t mean that we didn’t write our previous stuff without any feelings but we had many line up/ internal problems in the past and now we know how to bare those things…
Who writes the lyrics and is there a general theme in them?
The general ‘concept’ is based upon the different faces of Heresy; self glorification/worship, sophisticated views upon emptiness and nothingness, the cult of Thugs, of Amon, Suicide… I wrote lyrics for ‘Dance of a Thousand Knives’, ‘Blacker than Black’, ‘Vortex of confusion’, ‘Daemon’s Claw’ and ‘Hellgium Messiah’; Sabathan wrote ‘Crimson Legions’, ‘Night Stalker’, Nerath Daemon wrote ‘Last Will’ and Ashmedi of Melechesh wrote ‘Seven Plagues, Seven Wrath’.
You recruited a new drummer with whom you also went on a tour in South America. How did you get into contact with him and does he fit in the band on a personal and a musical level?
We were in contact with him through e-mails etc… and he proposed to join when Alsvid quitted, so we tried him and he fitted both mentally and musically.
He proved himself on the South American tour and he’s now a permanent member of Enthroned.
What was it like to go on tour in South America? Any memorable events you want to share? And are the fans over there really as crazy as I have heard from e.g. Gorgoroth?
South America is totally different, people there are real maniacs, really into metal and for the Black Metal fans really into the concept and ideas, they really live it!
The Colombians are pretty extreme which is cool, a guy got stabbed, his stomach sliced and the club was covered in blood, the police came but left as the organiser gave them money so the guy was lying there in his blood for some times…
You also have a new guitar player, who also plays in Aguynguerran. Is it difficult for him to combine two bands and do you find Enthroned must be his number one priority?
He can combine both bands pretty well, no problem at all with that. We don’t ask him to consider Enthroned as his main priority, as long as Aguynguerran doesn’t cause any problems to Enthroned it’s fine with us, we are used to deal with members playing in several bands so it’s ok for us. Nguaroth knows that…it’s a kind of mutual respect which is normal I think.
In the past you have had many line-up changes. Did this have any influence on the music or was it only a cause for unnecessary delays?
Yeah…delays are the main problem with line up changes, but it got it’s positive sides; it brings fresh, new blood in the band. But the Enthroned style is for 90% made by me and Sabathan so there’s no major changes unless we want so.
Are you going on a tour to promote the new album? Any plans?
Nothing is planned yet, we have several shows confirmed or in preparation.
One thing is sure though; we will tour less than in the past. We have other things in our lives that takes much time and thus we wanna make our live appearances more a special thing than ‘another concert of Enthroned’. I mean by that, that we do not wanna play for example 5 times in the same place per year.
Last words…
Thanx for the Interview…
‘D.W.T.W.S.B.T.W.O.T.L XES.’ Frater Baphomet
