Interview with TOMB OF FINLAND
TOMB OF FINLAND, from the coldness underground pit of the Finnish earth, offering more excitement melodic through death metal that will send chills down your spine of course! After several 'singles in this 2022, they serve a new third album called "Across the Barren Fields" with 43 minutes of the most frostbitten, melodic death metal. Basically when I refer to this country, I keep thinking of a dusty cassette I bought decades ago and give it a spin to find a common genre of its contemporaries, so well that tape is "The Karelian Isthmus" of the legendary AMORPHIS. This is a probability, but not a hundred percent. At the same time they managed to whip out some good melodies, while still being quite heavy and core, mid-range at times. The guitar usually has some cool harmony parts, even more shredding solos with hallucinate riffs. You feel like you’re drawn into some kind of aural adventure that transcends a mere listening experience, and it is really workful!! However, not forgotten also the previous album "Below the Green" 2015 and "Frozen Beneath" 2018, has the criteria of a masterpiece that needs to give great attention too!
“Across The Barren Fields” will be released on digital, CD and LP (transparent orange/black vinyl, limited to 300 units) on August 19th, 2022. Order now:
https://bit.ly/ToF-across-LP
https://bit.ly/ToF-across-CD
Check out their official video "Shadows Of The North":
https://youtu.be/91h-gh4n7YY
Let's check our interview with Jasse..
MD - Can you give us some TOMB OF FINLAND's chronology...and tell us the background of your current musical membership?
Jasse : I started to write songs as a one man project in the fall of 2009, but officially TOF started in 2012 when we grew into a full band and released the first demo song. It still took few more years to get our debut album ''Below the green'' released in 2015. Three years later in 2018 our second album “Frozen Beneath” was released. Finally, after covid-19 our third album got released August 19th. Two of members are a bit older than the rest of. Everybody has some other bands in their history. The drummer Janne and the bass player Ville has also other bands, (SLOW FALL, ELVENSCROLL, DEATHGOAT) Olli sings also in KAUNIS KUOLEMATON. This line-up has been same from 2017.
MD - Didn't you all think it came off as serious melodic doom death metal at first, or was there a different idea of music at first?
Jasse : In the beginning the idea was to write melodic doom metal with a twist of traditional death metal. But nothing was really planned. Every single song was composed without musical border lines. So, the songs just grew complete as they are. I wrote more songs and some of them weren’t very doomish. More like mid-tempo death/black metal. Our style is not limited to one specific genre.
MD - What inspired the band’s name? Did you pick that simply because it sounded good, or did you have some kinda concept based around it?
Jasse : Our name was inspired by the demo titles of songs and cover art of our debut. I had something ready before we had a name. On the other hand, we wanted to use the word Finland somehow in the name. All the demo song titles were dealing with death, cemetery and tombs/graves. So, our previous drummer Antti Karihtala suggested that name. First it made me laugh, (because it was so close to TOM OF FINLAND, a famous gay artist from the past) (haha - ed), but later we decided to use it anyway. There is a bit of dark Finnish humor.
Jasse : It was very hard work, because I recorded and mixed this album by myself. Drums were recorded first and then guitars and bass. After a raw mix we recorded all final vocals. Our rehearsal camp has been built and used as a studio control room, so it is good space to record single instruments and vocals.
MD - What do you honestly think of the first "Below the Green" and "frozen Beneath" album nowadays? Do you still feel it's a great album and kind of represents what TOMB OF FINLAND is all about musically?
Jasse : Yes we still see them as good albums. They are a bit different than our latest album, but that is just our natural evolution. We still play songs from all three albums in rehearsals and live.
MD - Can you tell us more about the themes explored in your output, and what is the overall message that TOMB OF FINLAND promotes?
Jasse : Our message is mainly musical. Atmospheric and gloomy melancholy. Lyrical themes deals with death, cemetery, rotting and overall darkness of human life.
MD - Are there any 90s Finnish metal bands that inspired you the most? I’m just asking, as Finland and Scandinavia are places where melodic death metal thrived when the genre first came about.
Jasse : I would say all the early 90s music has inspired, not only Finnish bands. Maybe there are some which have been stronger than the rest. (SENTENCED, AMORPHIS and MALEFICIA from Finland. EMPEROR from Norway and EDGE OF SANITY, AT THE GATES from Sweden.)
MD - Can you tell me some information about your musical equipment that can achieve certain melodic sounds? Do you find it difficult to innovate within your rather strict definition of music?
Jasse : We use standard 6-string guitars in B tuning, basses we use are 4 and 5-string. Traditional Marshall or Peavey tube amps and normal drums, all the melodic atmosphere comes from the composed melodies and from our style to play our instruments. I don’t feel any difficulties in creating new music for us. We haven’t made any “deals” with any genres. So basically, we can write and release melodic metal music including influences from several metal genres.
MD - You've been dealing with Uprising Records on this new album instead of DK's Mighty Music, is there anything in particular that you like about it?
Jasse : We like them because they do their work well and the communication works fine. The owner of those both labels are same. So, there is no big difference between Mighty and Uprising for band like us.
Jasse : Yes we would like to be a worldwide well known band, for sure. The biggest challenge is how to get our music and our name spread well known to everyone in the world. It will cost a lot.
MD - Thanks for the answers! Last but not the least, tell about your promo tour and any word to add to the fans?
Jasse : Thank you for this interview. We are planning to play gigs in Finland during the fall 2022-summer 2023, but no tours outside of Finland have been confirmed yet. Stay rotten!
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