Rämlord from Finland deliver a very eclectic mix of styles with their recently released EP ‘We Are The Night’. Featuring veterans of the Finnish metal scene including Jarno Anttila, former guitarist in black metal pioneers Impaled Nazarene and underground black/death cultists Belial (the latter being no strangers to mixing diverse influences), that bravery comes across strongly in the music of his latest band. Combining a memorable mix of deathrock, ’80s heavy metal, Amorphis style folk, hard rock and black metal, the result is a versatile recording, which transcends any basic genre boundaries. Jarno answered our questions about the EP and their latest 7″.

Hi Jarno please give us a brief history of the band… what instigated the initial idea to form Rämlord? “After I left Impaled Nazarene I started to warm-up an idea about a old school metal band. I have been listening to that stuff since I was kid, but never really played in a heavy metal/hard rock band. I really wanted to finally play the music I love the most and Rämlord was born out of that idea. I joined forces with my old partner-in-crime, drummer Janne Mannonen, with whom I played in a rock band in late-’90s. After that I … Read More

With new album ‘Darkness Drips Forth’ out now on Relapse, we sent Kat Gillham to interview Hooded Menace mainman Lasse Pyykkö, also of Claws and Phlegethon. With Hooded Menace clearly his main band these days we asked the Finnish master of doom about letting other people in on his long-running death/doom project and when we can expect his twisted dark vision to hits the road again Your new album ‘Darkness Drips Forth’ was recently released on Relapse Records, please tell us a bit about it? “Well, I’d say ‘Darkness Drips Forth’ is our slowest and heaviest, but also the most melodic work to date. There’s stuff I can’t imagine being put on a record during the early days of the band. I wouldn’t have been ready for it. The new album goes from extreme to extreme, basically. Just don’t expect blastbeats, that’s not our thing, really. We don’t need extreme tempo shifts to be extreme. We play with smaller nuances than that, and as a songwriter, I find this more restrained approach a lot more interesting and challenging. Of course there’s also some stuff to bang our heads to, but compared to the previous albums, this one’s a crawler. And when it’s slow, the … Read More