Hello! With the Finnish metal scene being so prominent, how has growing up in Helsinki influenced your music?
Kride: Hello! Well, this is a hard one right at the start. Our band was formed in Helsinki but all of us weren’t born in here. Jussi was born in the north (Lapland) and moved to Helsinki roughly 10 years ago, constant darkness and cold were the main reason he started to listen to metal music, black metal to be explicit.
Rest of us grow up in Helsinki area and for us it was way easier to go see live shows and meet like-minded metal freaks. Antti and myself met around 2006 and at that time we used to go see live shows at least twice a week. We went to see every ug dm/bm show that was in town.
I wasn’t really interested about Finnish metal, most of the influences came outside Finland, there’s only a handful of bands I enjoy that are from Helsinki area, mostly non metal bands.
Beyond Death is your second full-length album, how has your sound evolved since your first album?
Kride: I think we went further away from death metal, but at the same time closer to the original sources of the genre. There is more black metal elements going on too if you compare it to our first album.
Your sound has been described as heavily inspired by old-school death and black metal, how do you put your own twist on this genre?
Kride: It’s really hard to put your own twist on things nowadays, but everybody is a different kind of musician, then you just start to mix and match and see where it goes. I don’t like to think too much about the genre borders and our music evolves all the time, but when we start to put it together it ends up sounding COTD. We do it with a primitively punkish touch but we try to keep it tight and add something melancholy and almost beautiful to here and there, nothing too fancy thou, maybe that is our ”own twist”… If it sound cool, We are happy with it.
The themes in your lyrics often revolve around occultism, death, and horror. What draws you to these themes?
Jussi: We find occultism inspiring and feel that it reaches towards something ancient and primal inside of us. I know that no one in our band believes in supernatural, but I find it inspiring to think about what horrors there might be that are beyond our comprehension. I find that classic fears of humans are something that everyone can relate on some level. We may never know what lurks in the darkness, or what might be following us on a dark misty evening.
The first single off Beyond Death, “Tombdweller,” has been described as having a backdrop of dramatic synths. How do you balance incorporating different elements into your music while still maintaining your core sound?
Kride: Core of our sound will always be hellish riffs with overdriven guitars, pounding drums and evily punkish vibe, these ”synths & shit” like I call them, are spices, but important ones. The composition needs to already be there without these backdrops.
We did experiment with synths on our debut album but this time we wanted to give them more attention, there’s not many bands out there playing d-beat with church choirs, at least I haven’t heard of them, haha.
As fans of movies like Hellraiser, Evil Dead and Omen, these movie scores have given us lots of inspiration, not to mention bands like Old Man’s Child & Cradle of Filth. We have always wanted more haunting and eerie feel to our music, I think now we are getting closer to what we have been searching for.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jW2QtQQWvY&ab_channel=DeathMetalPromotion
Beyond Death has been produced by Markus Heinonen, what was it like working with him and how did he contribute to the album?
Kride: Markus is my old bandmate from heavy metal band SATANS FALL, he owns a studio nearby Helsinki, a really cool place in the middle of ”Mad Max village” build out of containers. We did some early recordings of Satan’s fall in his place and I liked his methods and ideas. He’s an inspiring dude with different kind of visions and when I decided to quit in Satan’s fall, I remember I told Markus ”I hope we can work together with some other music project”. He actually joined Church of the Dead as a second guitarist but he was just way too busy to concentrate on our band on a weekly basis, but when the time came to start planning our first album, I already knew I would like to work with him.
Markus played a big part in Beyond Death too, he is really good with guitar sounds and as a vocalist himself, his contribution to our vocal arrangements was undisputed. Same goes with these ”dramatic backdrops”, we have been working all that stuff together.
You Should check out his band ASTRAL SLEEP! Doomy and unique stuff.
The album features cellos in several tracks, which is not typically seen in extreme metal. What was the inspiration behind incorporating cello into your music?
Kride: We have been planning to incorporate cello into our music for years, we just haven’t found the right spot. The main reason to use cello, other than it’s a beautiful instrument and can be used to create devilish atmosphere, is that Antti, our lord of low frequencies, is originally a cellist, and a great one too. Originally there was only one song in ”Beyond Death” that was planned to include cellos, ”Floating in Blood”, but then Antti did his magic and we ended up keeping most of the parts he improvised to the other songs too.
The album cover art for Beyond Death is quite striking. Can you tell us more about the meaning behind it?
Jussi: Previously we didn’t want to bring “Church of the Dead” alive in material form. We wanted people to figure it out themselves, but on this album we thought that now it is the right time to raise this monstrosity up from the depths of our minds, and to let you see what our great halls of death looks like. And who else to help us do it than legendary Roberto Toderico who did an amazing job on the cover. We told him that we wanted to show what ”Church of the Dead” looks like, and he jumped right into it!
What can fans expect from Church of the Dead in the future, both in terms of music and live performances?
Kride: At the time I’m writing this interview our second single “Christborn” is out. Check it out!
Of course there will be album release show in Helsinki 25.5. with our fellow tomb dwellers Ashen Tomb and Sepulchral Curse. It will probably be our last live show until autumn.
We have already started to put together new material and hopefully we will hit the studio before the end of the year. Let’s see…
Kaikkea hyvää!
Kaikkea hyvää myös sinne!
Thank you for this interview.
Cheers
Kride, Jussi & COTD
If you really would like to support Antichrist, you can just Share our article.
You can also support Antichrist by sending a couple bucks to cover some webhosting expenses. =>> PayPal
