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THE BEREAVED - Good Mourning To All
By Adrian ‘The Energizer’ Bromley
“This debut turned out pretty good, but it could have been a bit better,” says bassist/keyboardist Mikael Nilsson of Sweden’s The Bereaved about his band’s debut, Darkened Silhouette (Black Lotus). “We could have done things a bit differently with the arrangements and some of the ideas, but I guess that comes with being new at this whole thing. It’s an experience. This album was a learning process so that we can evolve the next time out and see a difference within The Bereaved.”
They say bands take years to craft and create their debut. How hard was it to assemble this record and how was the studio work?
“That is very true,” he agrees. “It took us many years to finish all the songs. Some of them are actually from 2001 and 2002. We [drummer Tobhias Ljung, guitarist Henrik Tranemyr and singer/guitarist Johny Westerback] were afraid that we wouldn’t have songs for the next album, but it’s actually almost done. We plan to go into the studio sometime in October and have the record out in early 2006.”
He adds, “The feeling is quite tense when you enter the studio for the first time and push yourself to the limit. You get really exhausted by all the concentration and pressure you feel. Even if it sounds like we hate studio work, it’s actually fun...at least afterwards. The next time we will be more prepared so hopefully it will be more exciting.”
While upon first listen, Darkened Silhouette sounds like average run-of-the-mill melodic death thrash, but there is something a bit more brutal underlying the band’s attack. It’s subtle, yet noticeable.
“It’s quite obvious that the Swedish death/thrash mob is our number one influence,” he states matter-of-factly, “but you can also hear some black metal and older bands like Pantera, Iron Maiden, and Metallica influencing what we do. Those influences are just as apparent, I think.”
So I’m sure many music fans reading this story are asking themselves the same question I want to ask: What does The Bereaved have to offer to the melodic death/thrash scene that others haven’t already provided?
“What does Good Charlotte provide in the punk rock scene?” he asks. “We are blending more musical styles instead of just focusing on the melodic death/thrash. It’s more brutal than others. Besides that, I think it’s up to everyone to decide on their own if we have something special to offer or not.”
The Swedish metal scene is still coughing up a lot of bands each year. There is so much talent emerging.
“I guess it’s all coming from hard work. When we were younger, music was the only fun thing we had. So any free time we had we went to the rehearsal room to play and have fun. Sometimes we even lived in the rehearsal room for whole weekends playing all day and all night. Music is a big deal for all of us in Sweden,” he says, laughing.
The subject of the band’s name comes up and I question the bassist if there is any meaning behind the band name.
“We changed it from Clone, because there were a thousand others that were using that name,” he reveals. “The Bereaved sounded good and fit the band well since we’ve all lost friends and relatives. We lost our former vocalist Jimmy Johansson when he was killed in Spain in 2002.”
Being new to the music business, how have you dealt with the whole label/business side of things? A lot of bands distance themselves from it as soon as they can. Your thoughts?
“I think it’s going quite well. The only thing that’s hard is that everything depends on the label. Darkened Silhouette was delayed a year because of that…but I still think that Black Lotus is doing great work for us and spreading the name as far as they can.”
Are you hoping for big success this time out?
“Not really,” he responds. “We just want people to get into the music we play. It’s not like we are going to be ‘album of the year’ or anything like that. This is a good record. People will take notice, but it won’t change the metal scene.”
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