It is obvious that " Weiland " follows the acoustic orientation taken with " Where at night the wood grouse plays " and put the "metal side" definitely aside, how do you explain this change ?
I have been bored by the metal scene since quite a while and played music related to the term "Metal" for a too long time. Aside from that, I find concepts relating to nature mystics and folklore quite ridiculous in a metal context.

However, you reintroduce the drum in this album. According to you, what does this instrument bring to your music ?
I felt it would work well and uphold some of the more rythmic and pompous passages.

"Where at Nights" was even more atmospheric than this new album, very homogeneous, here, the compositions seem to be built on a more "classical" basis, what did you change in your way of working the songs ?
" Where at night..." was a more monotonous album, thus the atmospherics are easier too explore. This time we wanted to paint concrete pictures - very detailed and rich.

What is the concept behind " Weiland " exactly? Why did you choose to split it in three different CDs?
The concept is to express three facettes of nature mystics that meant the most to us, this is why we split the album in three parts: Moorland, Forest and Water. Each chapter had to work by itself (read: you should really be able to grasp the atmosphere thereon) though the album should be looked upon as a whole.

Here again, the topics, the music, the artwork are linked to Melancholia and Nature, is what are these two topics so important for you ?
That's just my nature as an artist, I can't explain why, but why do you like Hamburgers?

I think that some changes in the line-up of the band occured recently, who is Empyrium today ?
Empyrium is myself and Thomas Helm on "Weiland" (our last album, by the way).

What do you think of the German dark scene today ? How do you see Empyrium in it ? Which bands do you feel close to ?
I am not really interested in scenes and other expressions of herd mentality. I like some bands from Germany and others I don't like, but it doesn't have to do with them belonging to a certain scene.

Do you plan to go on tour in Europe in the future?
Nope.

by Alyz Tale