Interview: Winterfylleth
I do think there's a yearning and hoping within it, but it's definitely not a positively themed record.
Winterfylleth have just brought out their latest epic album The Imperious Horizon on Candlelight Records and it sees the UK black metallers reach new heights of grand and harshly frostbitten metal done in the most atmospheric fashion. Gavin Brown had the pleasure of catching up with Winterfylleth lead vocalist/guitarist Chris Naughton to discuss The Imperious Horizon and its creation in full.
E&D: Your new album, The Imperious Horizon, has just been released. Does this album mark a new beginning for Winterfylleth?
Chris: I think it’s one of those albums that we poured a lot of ourselves into and it definitely kind of pushes things into some new territories for us, but I don’t think it’s a sort of line in the sand or anything. It’s definitely a continuation of where we’ve been as a band in the past, and although I think some of the ideas are very developed on it, I think we’ve got four guys writing in the band now. I think it’s kind of an organic progression.
E&D: With your albums do you want to explore different aspects each time through the progression of your music but still remaining true to the roots of Winterfylleth?
Chris: I think so. When you’re in a band that this been around for getting on for eighteen years now, there’s a lot of material that’s about the band, and I think that you have to try and do things that are interesting and new for the band, but also you have to keep in mind that you’ve developed a sound and there is an identity that you have as a band as well. So you have to keep a sense of who we are. I do want things to take some unique twists and turns, and definitely, we’ve got a few more of those this time. It has to make sense in the kind of canon of Winterfylleth’s discography, so I want things to be new and progressed, and I want us to try a few new, different things, time signatures and instrumentation, ways of writing and vocals and all those kind of things.
E&D: What subjects to the songs on the album explore?
Chris: I guess the idea really was that Imperious Horizon is a reflection on the state of the world over the last few years, and in view of that, it sort of speaks to this dominant, sneering, arrogant, plotting nature of things that go on behind the horizon, behind the veil, in a sense. I think we all feel that as citizens of the world, and I think it happens all the time, and across many different aspects of life. You only have to look at where we all find ourselves with, even on a simple level, like our cost of living, and all those kinds of things, and then you have companies recording record profits. It feels like the world’s a bit more of a divided, dangerous and unforgiving place in the last few years, and it’s some rumination on that in the tracks and and how it’s made us feel.
E&D: It’s been four years since your last album, The Reckoning Dawn, did you want to take your time with making this album?
Chris: It was more about circumstance rather than being particularly slow and making a new record. When we released the last one, that’s right when we hit those first round of Covid-19 lockdowns, so obviously there were restrictions to go to shows and on and off lockdowns for probably the next, kind of twelve to fifteen months. So we didn’t even get to play any shows for that record until probably the end of 2021 and then we didn’t get to tour it in Europe until probably the end of 2022. We then picked up the writing of a new album, in the beginning of 2023 and recorded that at the end of 2023 so it was more just a case of us not wanting to forget about what we just made, and bring that to fans because we were proud of it, it was a great record, and to do some touring with that. I think even though most people had a lot of time on their hands, the market over the last few years has just been flooded with everyone’s covid albums. I I certainly wanted to let all that stuff dissipate before we thought about bringing out something new and here we find ourselves almost four years later.
E&D: Do you feel this is your most expansive and atmospheric album to date?
Chris: I think it’s certainly got the best production and songs are really great on it as well in my opinion, obviously. There’s a lot more keyboard on this album this time as well. We’ve had Mark, our keyboard player in the band for probably 10 years but he’s really started writing a lot more and playing live with the band a lot more over the past couple years. So there’s definitely some new elements that come into the sound as well. A lot more layers of keyboard, but more vocals, certainly a sharper guitar tone on this one, and there’s definitely a better balance between all the instruments this time. I was really kind of anal about the production on this one, and so, I think we did way too many mixes and way too many masters, probably to the detriment of my relationship with our producer friend Chris Fielding, due to every time we decided we want some minute thing changing. It’s been quite a long process for us to make this one in terms of production, but I also think that bears out really well in the sound of the final thing and I think it just inherently finds some new territory. There’s some interesting, new songwriting styles on there. There’s more quiet parts, there’s some more heavy parts, slower parts, more keyboard rich parts, vocal rich parts, and I think that they just shine a light in some new areas of atmosphere that have been present in some of our other albums, but definitely are more explored and more expansive than this one. I think that definitely helps the overall atmosphere of the whole thing. Obviously, when those things come together, you get good production and the songs stack up, and they flow into one another and I hope that gives you a really Interesting landscape of songs.
E&D: You mentioned the word landscape there, is that what you envision an album to be laid out like and did you always want the music of Winterfylleth to get grander and grander?
Chris: Yes, if you look at the ongoing theme of the album cover designs that we’ve had this idea of evocative images of nature with no modern influence in them. I guess that there being a slight environmental slant in there, like how pure nature is outside of all the kind of chaos that we cause in it. I think that you want people to come on an emotional journey. One of the things I’ve seen people say about this album, is it doesn’t feel like it’s as long as it is. I guess you just have to consider how you layer things, how you build things, and take people on the journey, because if you’re really listening to it, and you’re almost lost in it, then you don’t feel the time passing. I think that becomes this sonic landscape. There’s a very flowing and stylish way that we kind of try and put the tracks together, and we’ve also thought about how they flow as an album. So yeah, I think the idea of a landscape is a nice one, because it ties in the themes of the cover, the themes of the songs, and tries to paint a mental picture for you,
E&D: Listening to the album, something else I thought of was just how triumphant it sounds, especially on a song like ‘Upon This Shore’. Was that what you wanted to do with this record as well?
Chris: I think there’s always a vein of the music being organic and uplifting in some senses. When you’re seeking those emotional mountaintops, then there has to be that sort of level of heroism or triumph. I guess that the best way to describe it like that kind of that power and that loftiness to the way that you write stuff, there is a jagged edge to it, though this time, and I think the concept sort of sits behind that quite well. So I do think there’s a yearning and hoping within it, but it’s definitely not a positively themed record, if you like, you know, the undertone of it is very much a reflection of the negativity in the world over the last few years. But there is a like on the track upon ashore, as you say, you know, it talks about how the world has become a kind of crazy place, but that if you as a person, can, I guess, look into yourself and kind of make sure that you’re taking care of of you and your own and making sure that you’re leaving something useful in the world. Then you know you can at least make a bit of it, that you can control a better place, things like that. So there is a yearning hope within there, despite the fact it’s against a backdrop of a crazy, dangerous, upside down world that we’re living in the past few years.
E&D: The track, ‘In Silent Grace’, features A.A. Nemtheanga from Primordial. How was the experience with working with him on the track?
Chris: Great, Alan’s a friend of ours. We’ve done several tours over the years with Primordial, and we’ve been to Ireland to play at their events and on our last album, we took Alan’s other projects, Dread Sovereign out with us as the support band, so we spent a lot of time together over the last few years. Every time we go over to Ireland, he comes to see the show, and sometimes he comes over to Manchester to watch football games because I think he’s a United fan He’s been obviously been an influence in terms of those early Primordial records, and he’s become a great friend. So when we were writing the track, which is called, as you say, In Silent Grace, it was a hangover from the last album that we didn’t finish, actually, so we kind of came back to it with fresh ears on this album session. It was really great, we sat in my studio, as I am now, just putting some layers onto it. I guess if you make music, certainly when I’m doing it, you’re kind of playing what you’ve written back to yourself, and then you can kind of hear where things might go and can hear a melody in your head. I think myself, or Nick, our bass player who was with me, started singing a sort of lyric to it and I guess we could hear kind of an Alan-esque vocal on it, and when you when you consider what kind of a vocalist he is, he has this sort of very evocative, gravelly, semi shouty, semi sung kind of tone to his voice. I don’t know how you could have missed him in the last thirty years if you’re into this end of metal. He has quite a power and a range and a presence that brings a gravitas to the song, so I think this one really needed. The song, in and of itself, is about coming to terms with loss, what comes after there, and seeking solace in the everyday and things like that. He really brought a feeling to that, so it was amazing, We went into it with quite a pure experience, really. He came over for the weekend, once we finished tracking the full album, and we went to our mastering engineers house, because he has a great studio, and spent a day or so there and did in quite a pure way, Alan hadn’t pre written loads of ideas or anything, but it was almost one of those instances where you do it on instincts and you feel what’s happening, and almost go with your first impression of it, because sometimes you get some really great stuff out of just following where you think the song needs to go. I think it’s definitely become quite a pivotal centrepiece of the whole album, and it’s a real emotional journey for the listener.
E&D: Are you looking forward to your upcoming tour in November with Wormwitch and Bizarrekult?
Chris: Yes, absolutely. It’s been probably three and a bit years since we’ve done a tour of the UK. We’ve obviously played some key shows across the last few years. We did a couple of shows with Emperor earlier in the year in Scotland and Dublin. We’ve done a few festivals like incineration Festival, and a few different bits and pieces, but we haven’t done an extensive tour of the UK in probably three to four years. I think, with the album out and fresh interest in the band, it should be great. I think that all the bands are different, but there’s a spirit and a shared love of all things black metal and atmosphere, it’s just achieved in very different ways, so I’m hoping it’s a collective of bands that are interesting to people, but also not just sounding exactly like each other. It is cool to do that and have different bands who come from the same place, essentially, but are branching out in different ways,
E&D: Are you looking forward to playing the new songs live?
Chris: Yes, I am. We ran some of them out when we did the shows with Emperor earlier in the year, and we played a few festival shows over summer, we played Inferno festival and Ragnarok festival and a few others. and we did bring some of the new songs to people at those shows. We were playing the track ‘Dishonour Enthroned’, which was the first single from the album, and we were playing ‘To The Edge Of Tyranny’ as well. I think we’ll probably put one or two more in the set.
E&D: How did those shows with Emperor go?
Chris: Very well, it’s a nice connection with Emperor. Obviously, we’re both on Candlelight Records, so it’s great to be able to play some shows with those guys, and to feel somewhat like peers to them after they’ve been a huge influence on a few members of the band over the years, so it’s been amazing and they’re super lovely guys. They always say, don’t meet your heroes, but they were perfect gents and really great to be part of the shows with.
E&D: With the colder weather fast approaching, what are your favourite things about winter?
Chris: My favourite thing about winter is not being too hot. I just like winter, obviously it’s a really important point in the year, particularly around the concept of our band as well. There’s the changing of the season, the arrival of the first full moon of winter, which is where the band was named for, it’s just an amazing part of the year. It’s very evocative. The landscapes change. It’s one of those things that can be quite inspiring, and it has inspired a lot of people of this style of music. On a more spiritual level, it’s really great to go out walking, do some hiking, travel up some of those landscapes and look out across and see a snowy landscape rather than a sun drenched one. I think it’s a strangely evocative thing.
Photo by Lee Barrett
