Having just released one of the most ambitious debut’s of the year The Great Discord are relative new blood to the modern metal scene. We were lucky enough to be able to speak to incredibly eloquent Fia Kempe and Aksel Holmgren who spoke to us about their brand new album Duende.
With their corssover being not only genre specific, incorporating various elements from Progessive Metal to Death Metal. The two then explained the record is merely the tip of the iceberg. Incorporating elements of the lavish stage show in which our singer is meant to represent various emotions the band have decided to use every medium of expressing themselves to their advantage.
Deciding to create a universe wherein language is universal and human emotions rule Duende is one of the most intriguing records of the year thus far, but don’t take it from me!
Would you be able to tell us about some of the themes on the new record?
Aksel : Sure! Well the idea of the band started when me and Fia got together to write some music for the first time a couple of years ago.
Fia : We had been talking about it for such a long time we’ve known each other for approximately ten years? And we had always talked about writing music together since w had the same musical influences, the same interests of music. But we always had other commitments ,other bands and stuff, so when we finally did that about two, two and a half years ago. It was just such a relief! We hadn’t felt completely one hundred percent satisfied with the other type of musical arrangements or commitments that we had before so it was so much fun to finally get our asses down and write these pieces of music together. And felt quite instantly that we had some good things going on.
Aksel : There was this musical chemistry right away, so that was the beginning , the idea behind the lyrical content and the visual aspects came along fairly quickly with the music which was also a lot of fun. Usually when we write, the music comes first, when we sort of have the first draft of the song done we just sit down and listen to it. Listen to what the music sort of tells us.
Fia : For example with “The Aging man” it was definitely that kind of situation. When we had the intro of this song and we just sat back and listened to it, it almost kind of told us that this is the question of death. The melody tells us the story and I know that it sounds a bit pretentious maybe haha!
Aksel : That’s sort of how it feels when we listen back to it. The music sort of called out for a cohesive theme and imagery. The main themes we write about in our music is the human condition, existential stuff, a lot of problems and disorders, some very deviant stuff that can go one in a persons life. That can range from the mundane stuff like anger and sorrow hate or joy,
Fia : Plain feelings or emotions,like people have daily from that to the extremes that we also include, like cannibalism you know the serial killer in there..
Aksel : The reason that we mix those up, even though parts of it are more unusual and extreme they are very much a part for humanity I suppose and what we as people can be and can experience. They also seem to fit the music so well because the music itself is quite dark, it’s very mournful at times but it can be joyful also and it’s important to represent every aspect of it in the lyrics and the thematics.
Fia : I think that a lot of people as far as the extremes goes, with the cannibal and the Necrophile and things like at. Everyone has a kind of a morbid fascination with those kind of things and that includes us as well, you’re interested to know more about those conditions and those psychiatric disorders. Which makes it kind of intriguing to sing and explore further aswell as the plain simple emotions that people just live through daily. So it’s an interesting concept to explore the human mind a little further and I think that’s what we’re trying to do.
This is merely an excerpt of our incredibly insightful chat with the lovely Fia and Aksel, to listen to the full thing click the Soundcloud link below, apologies for the quiet recording!
The Great Discord’s brand new album Duende is out now via Metal Blade Records!
