{"id":9058,"date":"2012-11-20T00:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T00:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=9058"},"modified":"2012-12-29T17:30:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-29T17:30:46","slug":"feature-aeon-11-12","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/feature-aeon-11-12\/","title":{"rendered":"AEON – Glowing Hatred (November 2012) | Features \/ Interviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

AEON – Glowing Hatred<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnthony Morgan<\/span>
\nNovember 2012<\/span><\/p>\n

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Aeon (l-r): Arttu Malkki, Daniel Dlimi (bottom row), Marcus Edvardsson, Zeb
Nilsson (bottom row) and Tommy Dahlstr\u00f6m<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Writing sessions for November 2012\u2019s Aeon Black \u2013 the fourth full-length by \u00d6stersund, Sweden-based death metal outfit Aeon \u2013 reflected usual writing sessions, the musical content being mainly authored by rhythm guitarist Daniel Dlimi and lead guitarist Sebastian \u2018Zeb\u2019 Nilsson. Sometimes the two mutually pen an idea or help one another, but much of the time the pair compose separately. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re kind of alike songwriting wise,\u201d Zeb observes. \u201cYeah, I guess there are some small differences though. He usually likes a particular way of having the bass drum go… It\u2019s kind of hard… Like on \u2018Nothing Left To Destroy\u2019; on the pre-chorus, there\u2019s a certain rhythm on the kick drum. That\u2019s one of his trademarks. He also used that two albums ago on \u2018Helel Ben-Shachar\u2019 (September 2007\u2019s Rise To Dominate<\/em>) \u2013 that song also had that kind of rhythm with the bass drum. If you really know what songs he\u2019s written in the discography, I guess that you can tell that he wrote \u2018Nothing Left To Destroy\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe kind of start at home. We programme the drums, record guitars, make pre-productions \u2013 mp3s \u2013 and send them to the rest of the guys for them to listen to. They maybe provide some feedback, or ideas, or something. That\u2019s how we usually do it, and it was kind of the same thing this time too. Tommy writes most of the lyrics, and then we just rehearse the songs and learn them. Yeah, that\u2019s how we do it (laughs). <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the songs are done really fast, but some songs can take months to do (laughs). From one song to another, it can be really different. \u2018Dead Means Dead\u2019 was the first song that I actually wrote for the album. That song I had actually written already when Arttu (Malkki) joined the band, which was in 2010. The real writing process took five or six months or something though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recording sessions took place at Empire Studio in the group\u2019s hometown of \u00d6stersund, Sweden, Ronnie Bj\u00f6rnstr\u00f6m handling engineering, mixing, and mastering duties. \u201cIt was all made pretty quickly,\u201d the axeman remembers. \u201cWe recorded for two weeks, and then Ronnie Bj\u00f6rnstr\u00f6m went home to the town where he lives. He has his own studio where he made the mix and the master for it. All the recordings were made here, and all of the mixing and mastering was done where he lives. That only took a few days. It was all made in not even three weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cRonnie\u2019s mix is really good. I\u2019d say it\u2019s both heavy and fat, and still it\u2019s really crystal clear. It\u2019s just the way it\u2019s supposed to be really, really fat and heavy. We\u2019re all really happy with the production that he made. We\u2019ve been getting a lot of good feedback about the production from reviews, so I think we\u2019re not the only ones that think he did a fantastic job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zeb dubbed Aeons Black<\/em> as the quintet\u2019s \u2018most varied album to date.\u2019 \u201cThere are more heavy songs, and yet some really fast songs too,\u201d he critiques. \u201cI think we have always tried to make each song very different from all the rest. I think both the pace of the songs, and how they\u2019re played on the guitars, and riffs and vocals, make them all really varied I think in a lot of ways. I think if you\u2019re listening to my guitar parts for example, you can tell that there are some different ways of playing. We have some really fast picking, and some heavy, palm muted stuff. Some riffs are high notes too. That\u2019s the best description I can make I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

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And as well, the guitarist deemed Aeons Black<\/em> \u2018groovier\u2019 in comparison to May 2010 predecessor Path Of Fire<\/em>. \u201cListening to this album you really feel the heaviness and the groove, kind of like when you\u2019re listening to Suffocation I think,\u201d he reckons. \u201cIf you put on a record by Suffocation, they also have that really cool groove to their music. It makes you wanna fucking go and beat something (laughs). I think that\u2019s really cool, and we actually managed to make that for this album too. If you listen to our last album, it was all really fast. They were good songs too, but they didn\u2019t have the same grooviness we have on this album I think. Our intention when we started working on that album was to actually make heavier songs, so it\u2019s kind of odd that it ended up like it actually did. The intention was to make a pretty heavy album, but it ended up really fast. It\u2019s kind of odd (laughs).\u201d<\/p>\n

The platter\u2019s title cut was described as \u2018a somewhat heavier, odder, not-so-typical Aeon song\u2019 by Daniel Dlimi, who wrote the tune. \u201cI can agree with that,\u201d Zeb responds. \u201cBoth rhythm guitars are usually exactly the same, but on that song the two guitars are played quite differently. That\u2019s one thing which makes it a little different. Usually we may have some heavy parts in a song and some fast parts too, but that song is really heavy all the way through. It\u2019s really low-tuned, and played really heavily \u2013 palm-muted, and really solidly played. It\u2019s a really unique song, different from everything else we\u2019ve ever done.\u201d<\/p>\n

On September 5th, 2010 it had been publicly disclosed that drummer Nils Fjellstr\u00f6m had parted ways with Aeon, his replacement revealed to be original member Arttu Malkki exactly two months later. \u201cNils doesn\u2019t want us to talk about why he quit the band (laughs), so I have to respect that,\u201d the axe-slinger cautions. \u201cWe started to look for drummers, actually going to see a show by Sanctification. Arttu had just joined them on drums and he played so good, so we thought \u2018We\u2019ve really got to try him out for our songs as well.\u2019 We had actually talked about it earlier, so we tried him out and it went really well. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a really solid player, and a really hard hitter on the drums. Most death metal drummers don\u2019t really hit as hard as he does; he\u2019s really bashing the shit out of the drums, and that\u2019s really cool. He\u2019s really solid; he stays in the right tempo all through. The two bands that he\u2019s been playing with mainly since he quit Aeon in the first place have been using back tracks, so he has been playing to a click all these years and that has certainly made a huge difference I think. He\u2019s really solid in the tempo, and he\u2019s been practising a lot. He\u2019s been playing really well, and we could tell by looking at him at that gig. It was kind of cool to have one of the original members back in the band. It was really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early 2010 witnessed the addition of Marcus Edvardsson (Souldrainer \/ Sanctification), Aeons Black<\/em> marking his inaugural recording with the Swedes. \u201cAt the time we had Victor Brandt on bass, but he became a permanent member of Entombed right at that time,\u201d Zeb explains. \u201cHe didn\u2019t really feel like he had the time to be in both Aeon and Entombed, so we actually asked Marcus then because he had made one smaller tour with us when we played with Mayhem from Norway, a black metal band. That\u2019s pretty much how it ended up. He\u2019s a really good bass player, really solid. He plays really cool I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

The axeman as well as bandmate Daniel handled bass duties on previous effort Path Of Fire<\/em>, suggesting bass parts performed on albums three and four might audibly differ. \u201cThat\u2019s a tricky one,\u201d he laughs. \u201cI haven\u2019t really thought of that. I think you can definitely hear some differences like on Rise To Dominate<\/em> where Max was playing bass with his fingers. Marcus is using a pick. On the other hand, when me and Daniel played bass we used a pick too. Actually, Marcus used really thin picks which makes the high end a little more prominent. I guess that\u2019s some difference; if there is some difference between how he played and how me and Daniel played, that\u2019s one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aeon (l-r): Daniel Dlimi, Arttu Malkki, Marcus Edvardsson, Zeb Nilsson and
Tommy Dahlstr\u00f6m<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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Vocalist Tommy Dahlstr\u00f6m penned lyrics, the lyrics themselves treading familiar paths. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty much the same, very anti-religious and very anti-Christian,\u201d Zeb recognises. \u201cThat\u2019s what he\u2019s always been singing about, and he keeps on doing that (laughs). I guess they\u2019re all kind of different from each other, but it\u2019s kind of hard for me to actually answer because I\u2019m not really sure what all of them are about. I think he could probably answer that better than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A music video could perhaps be in the pipeline. \u201cWe\u2019ve actually been talking about making a video for one of the songs, but we haven\u2019t really agreed on which song,\u201d the guitarist muses. \u201cWe will definitely play in it, because I can see a lot of videos where there\u2019s only a story and you don\u2019t see anything from the band. To me it\u2019s more important to see the band play than having a story. If I could choose, I\u2019d like to have both. I want to see the band perform and I want to have a storyline going which of course follows the lyrics, but that\u2019s actually one of the harder things when you have to pick a song for making a video. It has to be a really good song that a lot of people are probably gonna like, but yet it has to have a good theme so you can actually make a good story out of it. We have our ideas of which songs would be good for it, and Tommy is still looking at it because he can be like \u2018No, that\u2019s not a good idea. There\u2019s no way you could make a good story out of that.\u2019 The lyrics, that is. We\u2019ll see (laughs). It\u2019s definitely in the plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Veteran artist Kristian W\u00e5hlin \u2013 whose curriculum vitae includes artwork commissions for Bathory, At The Gates, Dissection, and Emperor \u2013 designed Aeons Black<\/em>\u2019s cover artwork. \u201cIt\u2019s really good,\u201d Zeb enthuses. \u201cWe\u2019ve never had a painted cover, because so far we\u2019ve only had covers made using PhotoShop. We really wanted a good looking cover that was painted. For us, it felt natural to ask Kristian to do it because he\u2019s made so many good covers over the years. We sent some mp3s from the pre-production to him for him to listen to. First of all he likes to hear the music in order to decide whether he wants to do it or not, and he really liked the music and he wanted to do it. He said \u2018Okay, I can either make a painting for you or you can have this one.\u2019 The one we used he had already painted. It really suited the lyrical theme for that track, and it really looks good. We were kind of surprised that it actually fit so good as it did, because he had already painted it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aeon will tour across the United Kingdom in January 2013. \u201cWe think there will be five or six tracks from Aeons Black<\/em>, but it\u2019s a kind of best of. There are some songs that we always play,\u201d the axe-slinger divulges. \u201cWe try to pick songs from every album, and also from the first EP. There are certain tracks that we always play live like Forever Nailed\u2019 (from September 2005\u2019s Bleeding The False<\/em>). We always try to do \u2018Forgiveness Denied\u2019 (Path Of Fire<\/em>), because we actually made a video for that one. It\u2019s all a really good mixture of new songs, old songs, heavy songs, fast songs, and mid-paced songs. I don\u2019t wanna reveal which songs we\u2019ll play, because we wanna take people by surprise I guess. Some of the songs they can kind of guess, but it\u2019s more fun if they don\u2019t know which songs we\u2019ll be playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aeons Black<\/em> was released on November 16th, 2012 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, on the 19th in the rest of Europe, and subsequently on the 20th in North America, all via Metal Blade Records.<\/p>\n

Interview published in November 2012. All promotional photographs by Fredrik Wallin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AEON – Glowing Hatred Anthony Morgan November 2012 Aeon (l-r): Arttu Malkki, Daniel Dlimi (bottom row), Marcus Edvardsson, Zeb Nilsson (bottom row) and Tommy Dahlstr\u00f6m Writing sessions for November 2012\u2019s Aeon Black \u2013 the fourth full-length by \u00d6stersund, Sweden-based death metal outfit Aeon \u2013 reflected usual writing sessions, the musical content being mainly authored by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[470,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aeon","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9058"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9077,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9058\/revisions\/9077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}