Horror and Metal seemingly go hand in hand. Comprised of many of the aspects that draw people in. Both genres might be a different medium yet create the same effect. Deciding that Carach Angren would essentially create a hybrid between the two. Having three fantastic releases under their belt already the band decided to step it up a notch with this year’s release This Is No Fairytale. Where concept albums have almost become a trend , we spoke to Ardek about the band’s latest grim effort, how it came about, what exactly inspires our new ghoulish trio along with some of Ardek’s favourite film composers and of course what Horror films are some of his favourite of all time!
What exactly is This Is No Fairytale, I have heard people say that it’s an interpretation of Hansel and Gretel is it kind of a horror story?
We always tell horror stories, for example the last CD that we told was completely made up. For some years we have had the idea already to adapt fairytales, or at least fairytale themes into our new concept. This time we did it so we took the story of Hansel and Gretel, Seregor wrote it and then completely fucked up! So, we took it apart and set it in the modern day, which is what I said before, it’s a challenge because usually when you tell a fairytale it’s like “once upon a time…” and I think that that’s distant from your present life. We set it in modern times, it’s about domestic violence, then we introduce some fairytale elements but then it comes back to the harsh reality. So as a listener you’re constantly put between “is it a fairytale?” “No it’s not” you know? And that is why we had the title come out like This Is Not A Fairytale, that’s it!
Do you take any influence from horror movies or classic horror stories?
Yes a lot! Seregor watches movies all the time and usually when we have a chat he tells me about all the new movies and he’s fascinated by that and me too I like that. Especially Asian horror movies give me the creeps, stuff about ghosts, but also we like to sit down and talk about these things and come up with new things ourselves. Especially when ŵe tour and travel, we try to come up with some sick stuff. Then we try to combine things and that’s how we work. So we are definitely inspired!
Lammendam is based on a ghost story is that correct?
Yes, a very unknown one!
Can you tell us a little about that then?
Yeah of course! Lammendam is short for La Madame Blanche, when the French were invading Holland. Actually our singer lives near the place where all of this is supposed to have happened and it was about a woman living in a castle and she had two lovers. The two lovers were fighting over her and there was a fire in the castle where she lived, she died in a horrible fire and then strange things started to happen.
The two guys that were in love with her died in horrible ways too and this is what we describe in the album. Somehow this story has survived for a couple of hundred years and that’s really intriguing. There was an old guy living in this town where all of this supposedly happened and he’s still telling this story but other than that not many people know about it. Our singer has know about the story for maybe thirty years, so when we had the chance to release our first album, we thought this would be really cool to get it out there. And that’s why we chose it!
This is simply an excerpt of our chat that we had with Ardek, to listen to the full interview click “Play” on the Soundcloud link below. We also have a whole load of other interviews to sink your teeth into.
Carach Angren’s phenomenal new album This Is No Fairytale is out now via Season Of Mist.
