Band Interview: Naglfar

Naglfar released their excellent new album, Cerecloth on May 8th 2020 (and first in 8 years). An album that, in our own words proved that:

Eight years is nothing when it comes to delivering brutal black metal noise. The fire never truly goes out and in the case of the Swedish heavyweights, it’s burning brighter than ever.

You can read our full review here.

A few weeks afterwards, we were able to chat with guitarist Andreas Nilsson about his own expectations of the album, overall satisfaction, pressure to deliver, what was different this time round and much more.

Below is a transcript of part of the interview. You can listen to the full thing at the bottom.

Regarding feedback on the new album

Andreas: I mean, good! The majority (have) seemed to get into it. The few complaints we’ve have seen are maybe people would have wished for some more progress to have been made in 8 years. But I mean, we’re writing the music that we want to listen too.

We do this first and foremost for ourselves. We never try too write music for the sake of being up to date or just original in any way.

On his own personal satisfaction of the new album

Andreas: Absolutely! Once again, the standard answer is that I think it’s one of our strongest releases actually. I would say I am very pleased.

Regarding any pressure that might have been felt after 8 years

Andreas: Well, not pressure actually…I mean we did take 8 years, so of course there’s some pressure. For me personally, I don’t know about the other guys but for me personally there was this concern that maybe people would have moved on.

There’s so much new music coming out and so many new bands so that was one thing actually, but it doesn’t seem like that’s the case.

On a different approach to the writing of Cerecloth

We always used to meet up at Marcus’ (guitars, bass, keyboard) place to come together and write riffs and arrange the songs. It was always a close-knitted thing, we were working very close together and we always did it at his place.

As time moved on and just after Téras (2012) we realised that we were finding it difficult to schedule those sessions. Work, family life…you know we’re not 20 anymore. So what we did different this time around was, first and foremost, I set up a recording studio at my place. Just a simple home recording studio so I could work separately.

So we had been writing on our own and then meeting up at Marcus’ place and finishing up there. So that’s one different thing. Also on the previous, I’d say at least 3 albums, we had been very strict about everything having to be perfectly played. Almost like a machine when you play the guitars.

So we had been very strict about that but this time around when we received the drums from Efraim we felt that it had such a natural groove to it that it affected the whole recording process!

Links

Website | Pre-order | Facebook | Instagram