The idea of making a project with more brutal music had for a longer time been in the mind of Kristian Niemann (the guitarplayer of THERION). There were earlier attempts to put something together, (along with his brother Johan) but by some reasons it never ended up in a finnished record. So when the idea was brought up again, this time together with a third companion from THERION, Christofer Johnsson and the drummer who was working with THERION at that time, Rickard Evensand (later in in SOILWORK, now in CHIMAIRA), the results finally ended up in a finnished record to present to the world.
The musical concept is not to be original or to be symphonic like Therion, but to go back in time and create a fresh and challenging combination of basically old death and voilent thrash metal influences, but aslo with a drop of modern black metal into the pot. Both Kristian and Johan got into the more brutal forms of metal quite lately and so their references are rather Cradle of Filth and Dimmu Borgir, while Christofer, being a growler in Therion in earlier days have experience of the thrash and death scene from late 80’s and early 90’s, rather would say Slayer, Bathory and all the old school death metal bands from those times.
This is creating a very interessting combination, featuring both Kristian’s more than excellent guitar work, Christofer’s by far best vocal performances so far, Richard’s intense technical drumming and Johan’s intense bass lines. Most of the music is written by Kristian and Johan, with some minor help from Christofer. As the captain of this ship, Kristian have been the main responsible person with arranging the songs and also much of the recordings in THERION’s, very own MODERN ART studio. The lyrical concept is done by Christofer and it is a story that is partly fantasy and partly based on theologicalcal and historical elments, that circle around the biblical Riders Of The Apocalypse characters.
Kristian Niemann (guitars)
Johan Niemann (bass)
Christofer Johnsson (vocals)
Rickard Evensand (drums)
