Interview: SIRENIA

Interview conducted with Morten Veland of the gothic/symphonic metal band, Sirenia.
The band have released their new album called Riddles, Ruins & Revelations, via Napalm records.

Hi Morten, nice having you here! A new album, 3rd one with vocalist Emanuelle. Kudos! A first thing to be remarked on Riddles, Ruins & Revelations are the electronic synths sounds, which this was like a “boom. How do you comment on this?
The new album is less symphonic than the previous one, in terms of keyboard work we leaned more towards a retro sound, quite inspired by the eighties and early nineties. With every album we always try to bring something new and fresh to the table. We want every album to have its own unique sound and style, the last thing we want to do is to release two albums sounding exactly the same.

What’s Riddles, Ruins & Revelations about?
It is about the darker aspects of life.

Reading some random reviews of the new album, it is pointed out that your sound become a lot more “modern“, since you added the electronic/synths sounds, less symphonic than the usual. It is like a new chapter, something you wanted to experience…
Electronic elements and synths besides the symphonic stuff has been with us since the very beginning. Even on our debut album from 2002 these elements can be heard. But with the new album we definitely gave these elements a bigger role to play in our songs. I love to compose the symphonic parts, but I don’t want to overdo it, so on some albums the symphonic elements are quite dominating, and on some albums there is way less of it.

I can also speak about these differences, with the first Sirenia releases, which are mostly my favorites, they were more darker, but I think these changes in a band appear also when, as I said earlier, you maybe want to experience something new, as well the different female vocalist Sirenia had over the years. Do you agree with this?
In the beginning of my career I was very into making the songs very dark and melancholic. But everything changes with time, also your preferences for music. Today I am more into writing songs that are energetic, powerful and melodic. I write a lot of songs these days that I feel would work out very good in concerts, so the energy is important. But it is still important for me that the songs are very atmospheric and dynamic, as they always have been.

During the pandemic, have you faced any drawbacks, that made you delay the album recordings or releasing it?
Yes, the pandemic complicated the recording process of the album. The release was delayed with 6 months due to the Covid 19 situation. It was a very chaotic album to make, and it was really hard to plan things, as we never really knew what to expect from the next day or week. It feels great to have completed this album, and we are happy with the way that it turned out, especially knowing how hard it was to make this one.

It’s yet unsure about touring, hard times for all the bands. In this case, what’s the way you are promoting the album?
As touring is off the table these days, we try to focus more on social media. We have become more active on Youtube for example, and we will continue to release more video material. We have a new lyric video coming out on March the 17th. We have also been doing a lot of interviews etc for this album. The response have actually been amazing for this album. I think that some people got a bit sceptic after our first single being so different to earlier works, but now as the whole album has been out the fans seems to really like it. We have also received lots of great reviews and hit the charts in multiple countries thanks to our faithful fanbase.

Is there anything else would you like to add?
Cheers to all our fans out there, stay safe and take care in these strange times. Also keep an eye out for my solo project Mortemia, as I plan to release new music very soon, most likely in April already.

Let’s hope for better times. Thanks again Morten for your time. Hope to see you soon on the road! Rock on!
Indeed! My pleasure. Thanks for the support, stay safe and we hope to see you on tour soon!