Who doesn’t know them? Norwegian Black Metallers of the first hour, ANCIENT. They have tons of albums out already and their latest epos “Night Visit” definitely is the pinnacle of their creation so far. Back to the roots, but still modern they unleash a true tornado of deep Black Metal music. Grom faced the question barrage of Ralf

Hi this is Ralf from Germany. What’s up at the ANCIENT headquarters?

Hi! Everything's great here. We are all very excited about the new album “Night Visit” and we really can't wait to get more feedback. The response so far has been great from the press, we're really optimistic. We hope the fans and listeners will like the album as well!

What can you tell me about “Night Visit”? It’s an “evil” album…

Well, it's definitely a very super-natural album that explores all kinds of emotions and feelings as well as creating many different atmospheres. We really wanted this new album to have a lot of variety, to be totally representative of this line-up and its potentials. It is definitely the most mature and richest album we have made so far and we are all very satisfied with the result. It was clear to us that we had to do the best album we could and we knew that the only way to achieve this was to unite our forces, unite our heads and make a well written album that was a hybrid of all our different musical tastes. We are very different musically between each other, we have different musical backgrounds, musical tastes, influences...we listen to very different things one from another in the band, but we work together very well because we've been playing together for so long. It's natural that the result is an album full of ideas, inspirations, influences and an album that really goes from all genres of metal and beyond as well. We all thought that “Proxima Centauri” was a great album and it showed a good evolvement for the band but it wasn't 100% representative of this line-up because it was written entirely by Aphazel and myself, with my input however being based on ideas Aphazel had since the beginning for the songs. This time we decided to get together and write the album completely in 'real time', as a band and everyone and the same input and the same percentage of compositions on the songs of “Night Visit”. That's why it turned out to be such a mature album for us with so much variety. There is always something new to hear on „Night Visit“ even after the 20th listen. We also grew a lot technically in the past 3 years, thanks to 2 years of constant touring and also, in my case, a lot of personal studying. We grew tighter as a band from the touring. The production is the best we've ever had, thanks to Fredrik Nordstrom of Studio Fredman who I don't think needs presentations. The artwork, the video thanks to Metal Blade's support are the best so far for us and everything seems really promising! We really hope people will like it!

I think it’s heavier and better than the two previous albums…What was different when you started the recording process?

When we actually started the recording process, the difference was the frame of mind. We were all very submerged into the working atmosphere and we all wanted to give 100% and play to the top of our possibilities for the songs. There was a lot more effort and more involvement from everyone even in the recording process. Even when I finished recording drums I kept going to the studio everyday to follow the work and do vocals as well. Everything was more productive and organised and we knew we had to give it a full shot.

What are your favourite songs and why?

I think “Envision The Beast” because it's the song I wrote the most for and I have a sort of personal connection with it. It is also the most refined song we have written for this album and it really sums up the variety of sounds and feelings this album expresses. “Rape The Children Of Abel” is also a great favourite for us. It is the most rhythmical and heavy song we have ever written and the riffs on it in my opinion are really killer. Kaiaphas' vocal performance is great and that song really sounds like a single. I would also add “Horroble” (yess!  Ralf) because of it's brutality and it's catchy character, this one is also a potential single and I really like the horror atmosphere it has. I really enjoy and like all the songs on “Night Visit“ though.

What’s the momentary ANCIENT-Line-Up. Deadly Kristin is not in the band anymore…What happened…?

She left the band due to practical reasons. She was living in Sweden and it was very complicated for her due to her life to follow the band on tour, in the studio and at rehearsals. It got to a point where we thought that there was no point in having an official member of the band that was never there. We talked it over and decided to part ways. Ancient was getting more and more demanding and busy and she simply couldn't really keep up. We still remain on friendly terms and wish her all the luck in the world.

What can you tell me about the lyrics - I got no lyrics, sorry…

Each song has its own meaning and theme. The album is very horror, very super-natural oriented...very ghostly. We are all very much into horror and thriller movies and we have always been fascinated by the unknown, the super natural. “Night Visit“ is not a concept album, but it really sums up the feeling of disturbance, the anxiety and the 'shivers down your spine' feeling you get when you feel like you are being watched at night in your bed, or you feel presences in the room...someone following you and basically it expresses the fear of the unknown. It is very much a classic horror based album and the title track and video talk about a girl who loses a loved one. This dead person cannot leave this world because he is too attached to her and returns every night to visit her, ultimately driving her crazy because she feels his presence, smells him, hears his voice down the corridors of the house. It is very inspired by KING DIAMOND and the ghostly atmospheres of “Them” or “Abigail”. The artwork also expresses this very much.

If you take a look back in your own history - do you still like all ANCIENT albums?

Yeah definitely! They are still albums we all like a lot and each album has its life with its history and the reasons that made it that way. We all have personal preferences of course and most of us think „Night Visit“ is a real achievement for the band, but we still like playing the old songs live and we will always do. Some of the old stuff is great! I really like “Proxima Centauri” and “Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends” as well. There are obviously, looking back, things that now we would have done differently but that's the game. “Night Visit“ though is the most satisfying record we've made so far and that's pretty much the whole band's opinion, mainly because it's our 'creation', it represents everyone in ANCIENT.

Most of the known Black Metal bands left the path of this genre and are playing another style like MAYHEM, DIMMU BORGIR, AGATHODAIMON or GEHENNA. You are still playing Black Metal…What do you think?

Well, I think that we have also evolved quite a lot for this album. We tend to have more classic Black Metal parts because ANCIENT is very much a band that likes to express things through this form of music. I think many bands changed from a natural evolution, a natural maturity and others changed because of the dramatic fall in interest for Black Metal. We have never really been a classical Black Metal band like DARKTHRONE or even IMMORTAL. We have been including a lot of other styles and genres in our music since “Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends” which was definitely not a classical and typical Black Metal album. I think any band is free to follow their own musical inspiration of course and with “Night Visit“ we really evolved a lot but at the same time we always have that part of our music that keeps us connected to our roots, this is another reason why this new album is really great for us.

I really thought that there will be no real important new albums in Black Metal again in these days…Then you came up with “Night Visit” and the new DARK FORTRESS-album is a killer, too. Do you think that the best time for Black Metal is over…?

It's not really over but it's definitely dormant. It's sleeping and it needs to wake up because unfortunately this is the worst period for Black Metal. I have seen since the nineties. I hope things will come back and the interest in this music will return. One of the reasons I think people have lost interest in Black Metal is because of the huge trend that followed the birth of this music in the 90's. Many people were into it because it was popular at that point and with the labels really pushing and pumping out loads of useless records of unknown bands saturated the market. People grew fed up and tired of Black Metal and start buying other genres. Luckily things seem to always go in circles and the interest should return, also because Black Metal is a genre that revolutionised the world of extreme metal and played a great part in the history of Metal music.

What are the ten best albums in Death/Black Metal for yourself? What kind of music do you like in your car/CD-player…?

Well, I wouldn't know what the best 10 are, but I can give you my favourites which are

Dissection - The Somberlain

Dark Tranquillity - Projector

Bolt Thrower - For Victory

At The Gates - all albums

Mayhem - De Mysteriis...

Dark Throne -Total Death

Satyricon - Nemesis Divina is a great record too and I also like all DEATH albums a hell of a lot. There's many other albums I like as well, it's impossible to list all of them. I usually listen to other genres in my own time otherwise listening to extreme Metal all the time would un-inspire me with ANCIENT. I really listen to everything, all kinds of music even non-metal. Jazz, some Rock and Hard Rock but mainly a lot of progressive music like TOOL (my favourite band), PERFECT CIRCLE, IRON MAIDEN of course, some DREAM THEATER, TOTO, FATES WARNING, RIOT and VAN HALEN. Everything really....at the moment I am really enjoying KORN's new album actually, I think it's not as dull as the other stuff I heard.

Will you tour for NIGHT VISIT?

Yeah definitely! We have always been a live band and we really want to go out and play in front of people and for the fans. We are taking time off this summer to organise and prepare the new live shows which will be more intensive than we've done so far. We are scheduled to play at a festival in August called Metal Camp in Slovenia but the official touring of “Night Visit“ will start more or less in October. We will try and go to as many places as possible like we did for “Proxima...”. Mexico, Israel, Bulgaria, Russia...we really want to play for everyone.

You did a videoclip for “Night Visit”, right? What can we expect?

It's the best video we have shot! The budget wasn't huge but we are surprised what we managed to make considering the situation. There were a lot of technical difficulties, delays, problems and bad luck so it was really a relief once we finished it. We decided to make 2 versions of the video. One is the TV Edit version which is shorter and cut, for TV stations and you can download it from our web-site www.ancientband.com. The second version is the full / uncut version of the video that can be found only on the actual album as a CD-Rom track. We decided to do this for two reasons. First of all the song was too long for a TV video and few channels would have played it if it lasted over 5 minutes. So we cut down the song and distributed this version for promotion. We also really wanted to have a full version of the track for the video so we shot that as well and we put it on the album as a sort of gift, something extra for the people that make the effort to buy the album instead of downloading it or copying it. Nowadays music is really, really suffering a lot to continue, especially smaller genres like Metal, because no one is buying CDs anymore. We thought those few people that support music and make the effort to spend their money deserve something extra.

Now you worked together with Fredrik Nordström who did a great job. What’s the difference between his working habits and Andy La Rocque’s…?

Well, I don't really like to compare studios or producers because they all work in their own way and have their own attributes. Andy's studio was good for what we needed back then but we knew that for this album. Fredrik was the only one that could really give us what we wanted in terms of sound. We wanted a very organic, very natural sound for “Night Visit“. We wanted people to hear exactly what we played in the studio, no editing or altering the music and leaving even small imperfections that give it a very 'live' feeling. No triggers on the drums, no artificial sounding instruments or digital feeling...we wanted it to very analogue and warm. It is difficult to produce an extreme Metal album that is clear, warm and natural but at the same time very powerful, big and explosive. Fredrik's studio and his talent as a producer was the evident choice for us and it was a great experience to work with him. He gave us exactly what we wanted, a natural and warm sounding album but with the 'size' and power that an extreme Metal album has to have.

Which question did I forget?

Side projects? I am currently about to record the second album of my parallel project HORTUS ANIMAE, always on Black Lotus Records which will be released this winter. It will be a concept album on mental insanity and murder sprees. We play a mixture of progressive/gothic extreme Metal and you can check it out at www.hortusanimae.com. Or you can visit my personal web-page at www.gromdrums.com...check it out and drop me a message if you want. The other guys have pretty much abandoned all their side-projects except for Jesus Christ who is developing HORROBLE, a Horror Rock band, very dirty and very raw. Sort of a mixture between the early DANZIG and some Punk music. It's very cool!

Your last words?

Well, thanks a hell of a lot to all of you for the support throughout the years, your response in Germany has been amazing and we really appreciate that! Germany is a great country with which we have a lot of connections and we really can't wait to come back and play live! I invite everyone to check out “Night Visit“ and see what they think! I am sure you won't be disappointed! Take care!

See ya on tour (hopefully) & all the best!!!

Discography:

1993: Eerily Howling Winds (Demo, Self-production)

1994: Det Glemte Riket (Single, Listenable)

1994: Svartalvheim (CD, Listenable)

1995: Trolltaar (EP, Damnation)

1996: The Cainian Chronicle (CD, Metal Blade)

1997: Mad Grandiose Bloodfiends (CD, Metal Blade)

1998: Det Glemte Riket (CD, Hammerheart)

1999: The Halls Of Eternity (CD, Metal Blade)

2000: True Kings Of Norway (Split, Spikefarm)

2001: God Loves The Dead (EP, Metal Blade)

2001: Proxima Centauri (CD, Metal Blade)

2004: Night Visit (CD, Metal Blade)