With their fusion of medieval folk melodies and crushing doom-laden metal, Swedish band Apocalypse Orchestra has carved a unique place in the heavy music scene. Their long-awaited second studio album, A Plague upon Thee, released on February 14th, offers a haunting journey through history, mythology, and the depths of the human soul.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the band about the new record, the creative process behind their distinctive sound, and how historical themes continue to shape their music. From the challenges of bringing medieval instruments into a modern metal setting to the emotions that fueled A Plague upon Thee, our conversation shed light on the artistry and vision behind the album.
Read on to discover what Apocalypse Orchestra had to say about their latest creation and the road ahead.
M.I. - Tell us about Apocalypse Orchestra please.
Okay, where do we start? Basically we are a band playing slow heavy metal music, very inspired by medieval imagery and medieval themes in general. We use historical medieval instruments mixed with the normal metal instrumentation. I play bag pipes and hurdy gurdy and then we have electric guitars, bass, drums and lots of organs as well.
M.I. - A Plague upon Thee is finally here! How would you describe the evolution of Apocalypse Orchestra’s sound compared to The End is Nigh?
Michael - Well, I think we've gotten better as songwriters, we have improved with the experience from performing the songs from the last album live and also by seeing how crowds reacted to it. We knew what worked for us and for the audience so I think this album is more of the stuff that we really enjoyed from the first album.
Andreas - It's a bit more solid, I would say. The last one was a little bit more all over the place but we tried different things. This one feels like there’s a red thread moving through all the songs and it keeps them together. Then we've added a few new instruments as well to change the sound a little bit, not too much, but there are details here and there that we've added.
M.I. - Which instruments were those you mentioned, the new ones?
We listened to some hammered douer, it's like a precursor to the piano, it's like a board with strings and then you hammer on the strings with small mallets and it's a very brilliant sound that we've added in a few places.
M.I. - Your music is a powerful mix of medieval folk and modern metal. How do you approach blending these two seemingly distant worlds?
Michael - It depends what you start with because, when we write our songs, sometimes we start with a medieval melody that I play on the hurdy gurdy or something and then we add the other instruments to it, but it could be the other way around, we have a metal riff played on electric guitar and then we try to add the medieval part or the folk part to that. So there's not a given question, given answer, to how it starts but they blend, it's quite easy to blend them since they have the same feeling. Sad melodies and slow melodies mix quite well with the doom metal that we use. What were you going to say Andreas?
Andreas - Yeah, basically, as Michael said, when we start writing an album, we take everything from guitar riffs to chord progressions to authentic medieval metal and we throw it in a huge melting pot and then we start to figure out what ideas go along with each other so we start building the music from that kind of pallet. Like a painter, we have all these colours and we just start to mix them and try to fit them together.
M.I. - Can you tell us about the creative process behind this album? Were there any particular historical or literary influences that shaped it?
I would say that's a big part! We have, for example, the biggest song from our last album “The Garden of Earthly Delights” that is based on a painting by Jeroen Bosch, it’s a 16th century painting of paradise, earth and hell and we took a lot of inspiration from things like that. But there's also some literature and history books, since history is sometimes more fantastic than made up stories, and some movies and we listen to a lot of medieval music as well and get inspired by it.
M.I. - What’s the meaning behind the album title A Plague upon Thee? Is there a particular concept or story running through the album?
We knew that we needed a title that was representative of our sound and the plague is something that is often associated with medieval times, so calling it “A plague upon thee” that’s a bit tongue-in-cheek too. I mean “A plague upon you” is a bit of a joke but there is no kind of themes running around. Everything is connected by this thematic of medieval times but it's not a concept album, so we thought the title just fit good with the entirety of medieval times and it felt both poetic and quite heavy at the same time so it suited it fine, we thought.
M.I. - Some of your songs have a cinematic, almost soundtrack-like quality. Have you ever considered working on a movie or video game score?
We have had a few questions about that! People wanted to use some of our music in a video game but it didn't happen. I personally would love to do something like that or just if they want to use our music in a trailer that would be really cool. Several of us in the band play video games and we all love movies so that would absolutely be a really cool thing to do. Writing music takes such a long time for us, so if we were to write a soundtrack, we wouldn't be able to write our own music so… I think we prioritize writing our own music but it would be really cool to make something for a movie or video games.
M.I. - The videos that the band has already released from these singles and the previous album are all very interesting. Who comes up with those ideas for the videos?
I I think that it really depends on who is writing the lyrics, because the one who has written the lyrics to the actual song, usually has a good understanding about how to capture it visually. The same as when we write music… we all pitch in ideas and we all start to think what works and what doesn't work in terms of logistics. Then we try to go through all the steps and storyboard it and pitch it with the director and then it usually ends up very close to the vision that we started with. One of the biggest problems with making music videos is we want to do a lot more because we would like to have big castles and lots of expensive stuff but, since we don't have that budget for our videos, we have to make them with what we can mostly do ourselves. So, we've done almost everything ourselves… I sew some clothes and Rickard, our bassist, made the king's crown for the latest video and we borrow a lot of stuff from our friends… the same thing with the actors! They're our friends as well and parents!
M.I. - So it's all in the family?!
Yeah, actually, in the last video, Rick our bassist, one of his siblings and his mother and father are all in the video and my mother as well. She plays Death on the horse.
M.I. - Your lyrics often feel like they come from another time—where do you find inspiration for your storytelling?
I would say it's the medieval art, for me personally, and history, books and some video games as well. But then the metal part, I love Type O’ Negative’s slow and catchy melodies. Andreas has other inspirations. I think we all have very different musical tastes but there are lots of areas where we overlap each other and that's where we can find the inspiration to write stuff for this band. So, this band is like the sum of all things from each five of us!
M.I. - Many of your themes deal with history, plague, and medieval struggles. Do you see any modern parallels in today’s world?
That's a good question! We've been asked several times if this has anything to do with the recent pandemic but I wouldn't say it has. It’s more historically so to speak, it's the common things we write sometimes about the strife of man and how they could survive really dark times. Everything is open and we invite people to interpret our songs because we know that history repeats itself ,so I guess if we even ourselves would start to analyze our stuff, we would find lots of parallels but it's not intentional to do it, it's human nature. A lot of things, a lot of themes that we bring up in our lyrics absolutely can be related to today's themes.
M.I. - The production of the album sounds massive! What was the recording process like? Did you experiment with any new techniques? Where did you record it in in the first place?
It was a long process for starters. The recording process itself started by bits and pieces here and there. Lots of stuff was already recorded when I recorded the drums, some stuff needed to be re-recorded and some stuff could be used, so it was a long and a process very much like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. We recorded some of the stuff at home, at Eric’s (our singer) studio. Then we built a singing booth in our rehearsal space so we could record all the vocals there and then we brought in a lot of friends to do all the choirs. So we spent, I don't know how many months, just recording vocals cause we're several people in the band. It took a really long time but it turned out really good and we're happy with the result. Then we had the same guy mix this album that mixed our first album, Per Nilsson, and he really knows our sound and what we want so it was very easy to work with him on that. Since I have the opportunity, I will say that the drums were recorded at the Overlook Studios, a friend of ours William Blackmon, who is actually a drummer too, he plays drums for a grindcore band from Sweden called Gadget. He engineered the recording of the drums, so I really need to name drop him, because he is amazing to work with and we always get an amazing drum sound from him. It's very good that his studio is the neighbor to our rehearsal room, so it's very easy to move the stuff there and he's a really nice guy.
M.I. - Since this is your second album, did you feel a lot of pressure to do even better?
I don't know because since we had the viral hit “The Garden of Earthly Delights”, I think it has like 21 million views on YouTube now, it feels like we will never be able to top that, but we wanted this album to be even better of course and that's what we aimed for but we took a lot of time to make it the way we wanted it. I felt pressure absolutely, we all did. I felt the songs were strong, I felt that we had something going on, but the pressure I felt was that the time was ticking away so that was more of an issue for me perhaps than how it would actually be received from the audience or the fans but we'll see. I mean, before the first single was released, I started to feel “okay, what are people going to think about this?” but so far the reactions on the singles have been good. Now we just want to have the album put out and see how people react, if they remember us.
M.I. - Your live performances are known for their immersive and theatrical feel. How do you translate the grandeur of your recordings to the stage?
I mean everything we do on stage… the music is the most important thing really, try to bring the very best from ourselves. When we play, the theatrics is something that has been different from time to time, because sometimes we can bring some additional friends with us who can either dance or perform or what's necessary for that particular show. Sometimes we had the opportunity to use projections so we produced the entire show, had a different digital backdrop that changed all the time so it depends a lot on the venue and logistics. If we can bring something extra to the table, we try to do it, we really want to add something more to the show than just us. When we play in Sweden, we usually have a possibility to add something but if we fly to the location, then we can't bring that much.
M.I. - So where have you been playing? Where have you played so far in Europe? Have you been to the States or Australia?
We have been in Germany a lot, like five or six times, but we also played in Belgium and Spain. We did a short tour in Spain as well and Denmark and Norway. Surprisingly very few gigs in Sweden, it's very hard to find places to play here. We have never been to the States or any other continent yet but would love to but we'll see how this album goes.
M.I. - Are there any plans for a tour following the album’s release? Will Portugal be included?
We have nothing planned right now. We have the release, the release party in two weeks and the weekend after that we're going to The Czech Republic to play Heathen Strike Over Brno but that's all we have booked at the moment.
M.I. - Any festivals?
No, nothing that we can say right now. We'll see what turns out but we haven't got anything planned for the moment.
M.I. - Do you think Portugal would be a great place for you to play live?
Yeah, we would really love to go there, it would be awesome to go there, so if you have any good festivals let us know or let them know about us!
M.I. - Care to leave a final message to our readers?
I want to thank everybody who has been patiently waiting for this release and I hope that the people are still eager to hear the songs and the album when it's released. We really hope that we can find a way to play for all our Portuguese fans! That would be awesome!
For Portuguese version, click here
Listen to Apocalypse Orchestra, on Spotify
Questions by Sónia Fonseca
