We meet up with Mika “June” Junttila (bass) and Eemeli Bodde (vocals) and quite soon start talking about how banging the shows were they recently did, and how good it felt to finally be back on stage after all this time. Considering their new album ‘Origin of Fire’, the reactions have been overwhelmingly positive, with a lot of people saying that it’s more intense than the album before. The album packs more of a punch with maybe more straightforward heavy riffs and aggression, which is something they said came pretty natural, like they all had a fire burning to get things going. Which clearly translated into the music, and even the album title.

While the writing went pretty much the same, the recording was somewhat different since they recorded their parts separately. Recording without the time limit of renting a studio, caused them to be able to take their time and tweak things more. They’re also really happy with the overall tone of the album, through working with Tue Madsen for the mixing and mastering, accomplishing the aggressiveness with an old school, yet modern sound exactly like what they were looking for. The album also sounds and feels more organic to them, almost more like when they’re playing live. We end up joking a bit about the song ‘Fire Walk with Me’, as that is the song that delivers the blast beats that their drummer was asking for, about which we ponder if they could take it even faster and if he’s not regretting that request yet.

Eemeli‘s vocals sound more diverse and extreme than ever before, which he believes is because he got to take his time to try some new things out with the new recording process. That didn’t make it any easier for him to perform live, he’s been putting in quite some rehearsal time to prepare for the first live shows. Considering the lyrics and themes, Eemeli tried to explain that this time, instead of actual personal things, it’s more about things he sees happening around him considering society, mental health, and so on. It’s always a bit tricky, and he doesn’t like to analyze his lyrics too much, because he writes them in the moment in one go, whatever strikes his inspiration.

At the end of our talk, they do hint at some shows and festivals already being booked, but they couldn’t share any details yet. Though they’re promising some cool stuff to be coming. And to end on a funny note, Eemeli still brought up an anecdote about apparently a fan at one of their recent shows knowing the lyrics of one of their newer songs better than Eemeli himself…

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