Well, I think everybody of you knows Enthroned and their way to play BM. Since the beginning of their career, they have make some really good albums, and, with high and less moments, they are now arrived at the 5th full length album, "Carnage in Worlds Beyond", that I consider the best one since the times of their masterpiece (in my opinion...) "Toward the Skullthrone of Satan". Here's the interview with Nornagest, the long times mate of Sabathan, and guitarist of the band. Many interesting word are spoken about the new album, future projects, the change of label, and some things about past members...

Hails Nornagest! How's going on with Enthroned?

            Everything 's fine, thanx!

"Carnage in Worlds Beyond" is out. This is the 5th album of Enthroned (I mean full length album…) and the first one after the deal with Napalm rec.; now, could you tell us something about this new release and the reasons that made you leave Blackend rec. after many years?

            Blackend were doing nothing for us except …shit!
The fact that we signed with Napalm was the best thing that happened to us.
They gave us the contract we were waiting for and until now everything is working perfectly well. The new album shows the return of Enthroned as it is supposed to be; as many knows, we had some problems with some old members, like Namroth Blackthorn, who turned out into a real dick and had a rock star attitude that we couldn't stand! And Nebiros wanted to evolve in a more Death metal direction, that wasn't good either, plus other problems like they were not within their convictions anymore, so we had to get rid of them. The new members are the same as me and Sabathan and we are back as the Blackened Horde just like the old times; you can feel that within "Carnage in worlds beyond".

This new release is really killer: it has a very good production, fast and aggressive sound with cool thrash influences and marks, in my opinion, a step back in the direction of "The Apocalypse Manifesto", leaving some of the "chaotic" solutions of the previous "Armoured Bestial Hell", in favour of a more "atmospheric" mood. Do you agree?

            No! Sorry but you are the first who say that we have an atmospheric sound!!!
The new album for me is our best album with the best production we ever had
And this album got a very thrash/old school black metal sound, but certainly not atmospheric to me, and nothing in common with "The Apocalypse Manifesto"; but that's my own opinion!

Reading the lyrics and the titles of the songs, it doesn't seem that your text-writing has changed so much, anyway, I ask you if you can give us an idea of what this album is about and if it's a sort of "concept " album, being the songs bounded one with the other by an infernal thread…

            No, "Carnage…"is not a concept album, our lyrics have and will always deal with Satanism near or far /occultism. On the new album the songs are different lyrically wise but still remaining into a pure Satanic concept!

Why did you decided to include so many songs inside the Cd? You know, in the one I handle now, there are 10 songs plus three bonus tracks. And why did you decided to cover an Impaled Nazarene song and to re-record "Genocide"?

            The album is composed of 9 tracks (symbolic number)+ an outro and Napalm wanted to do a special edition with three bonus so we wrote an exclusive song, a cover of Impaled Nazarene (because they were a huge influence of Enthroned), and we wanted to re-record "Genocide" because we were not satisfied of the production of "The Apocalypse Manifesto" and the drums of Namroth Blackthorn, so we recorded a better version, more aggressive.

You are one of the guitarists of Enthroned since the times of the mighty "Toward the Skullthrone of Satan" album, and, along with Sabathan, the older member of the band, so I think you can clearly analyse the difference between the sound of the band at that time and the nowadays' one: could you underline those differences and the musical progression of the band since when it wasn't known like today?

            That's a difficult one…hmmm…well, I'm not going to be original but each albums got it's own identity, it represents a certain period of our existence good or bad.
As I said previously, we had a bad period…but anyway, I joined The Blackened Horde in 1995 just after the recording of "Prophecies…", and the music changed naturally as I have a very different way of writing music than Tsebaoth, so when he was fired we took Nebiros as a replacement and his style was also different, but as he didn't wrote a lot of music it didn't affect the sound mainly, so the result was "Towards the Skullthrone of Satan"; then some changing occurred both in the sound and…. the band, because when Cernunnos committed suicide we took Namroth Blackthorn, who was drummer in pre-enthroned band Morbid Death, because at the time we thought he was the best replacement but no…, on "Regie Sathanas" I wrote the whole music and we chose a more melancholic style for the occasion, as it is a tribute to Cernunnos.
Then came "The Apocalypse Manifesto" which is a good album, the sound is very different because we did the mistake (sorry Peter) to record in Abyss Studio and it gave us a too Swedish sound, not powerful enough and the feeling between the members was already fucked: we were not as unite as we were with Cernunnos, and believe me it affect the sound for sure!
"Armoured Bestial Hell" was supposed to be recorded with Nebiros but he got fired before and we took Nerath Daemon, which was a good step forward and he became the third real Enthroned Messiah since Cernunnos, "Armoured…" is a different album, as we tried some experiments like more techniques which was a mistake and Namroth Blackthorn composed some shits on that album as well but nothing that can may sound pure Enthroned, and his attitude was shit, then he fucked up some drums parts on purpose etc…and then, when we took the best decision of our career (fired him), we took Alsvid from Seth on drums and since that day we are back as a unity with a new label and this gave us the old feeling back and a lot of motivation and we composed our best album "Carnage in worlds beyond" with Harris Johns (Sodom/Kreator…) with a lot of headbanging parts a lot of aggressivity etc… This album represents perfectly well what we are; ENTHRONED Satan's Messiah's.

Any Enthroned fans can simply understand, listening progressively to you discography, how it's changed the way to make music of the band since the first album, 'till the last one. Having the occasion to talk with you, I can't avoid asking the reasons that made the Enthroned sound change from the obscure atmospheres of the first albums, to the nowadays raw and faster dimension of "Carnage in…". Can you answer my question?

            I think that for "Carnage…" we managed to have that dark feeling from "Prophecies…" back but with the brutality of our guitar skills (me & N.Daemon).
This is simply how Enthroned is now: Dark and Brutal.

It seems that Enthroned have always line-up changes: this time the previous drummer, Namroth Blackthorn, has been substituted by Alsvid. Can you tell us the reasons that made Namroth leave the band, and how did you found the new drummer?

            Namroth Blackthorn was fired because of his rock star attitudes; he poisoned the band for too many years, he was a great drummer live but that's all. When we were looking for a drummer, Alsvid contacted us to try out and he was perfect for the job, and afterwards we took him to a party to see if he would also fit our way of life, how he was personally and it seems that he was like us, so he entered the Blackened Horde.

Why do you think Enthroned have all this line up matters? It seems that you have to change someone of the band, each release you make.

            Because it is hard to find good musicians who are into the same convictions/mentality as yours, who share the same ideology and who wants to go in the same directions. We thought it would be the case with the past members but we were too quickly satisfied and we took peoples who didn't deserve to play with us, not that we are big heads or something but in Enthroned ideas are as important as your technical skills. As we have that unity now we hope to stay like we are now, but things happens sometimes that you cannot control and peoples have to leave for acceptable reasons.

We are talking about the new drummer, but you know that the history of Enthroned has been marked by the tragic death of the first drummer of the original line-up, Cernunnos (R.I.P.): in this year it's the 5th
recurrence of his suicide. What could you tell us in memory of your war brother?

            That he will always be in my mind and spirit, until the day we'll meet again.
Nobody will be able to take his place for me, no one!

Ok, back to the music, I know that before the album it was planned the realisation of an Ep ("Goatlust"), but it wasn't released do to some problems. What has been of this Ep, and, will it be released in the future?

            Yes, BUT there are a lot of problems around it, like factories/artwork/lyrics etc…
We hope it will be released soon, but it is old tracks from the "Armoured Bestial Hell" era with Namroth Blackthorn. "Goatlust" features two unreleased tracks: "Goatlust" and "The Black End". It's a big pain in the ass and I hope it will be released soon, we are waiting for two years now!!!

Enthroned albums have always been strongly bounded to Satanic and antichristian topics. How much do you consider important these topics in a Black Metal band, and how much of them is part of your personal view of life? I'd like to know something of your believes, if you want, tell us…

            For me Satanism/ occultism are the bases of Black metal not that Forest/snow/Viking shit!
Satanism is a part of my life and made me. I'm not a worshipper of Satan and I didn't choose Satan, Satan choose me and I respect him as my own father; my own vision of Satanism belongs to me, I express some of my personal views through my lyrics, so if you want to know more about it, just check it out, but the most extreme views of my concept will stay locked for myself and my true brothers.

Nornagest, now that we are reaching the end, I'd like to know your plannings to support the new album and when the hell you will come back to Italy, 'cause the only time I had the occasion to see you live was in '99 with Marduk, at the Babylonia in Biella !! And I arrived while your show was ending…

            Ah yes…we are planning a tour for January 2003 but nothing is sure yet, we are waiting for more than three years to do a proper tour and I think it is plenty of time for us to take the road again with good conditions, and of course if we are touring, we'll come in Italy to unleashed the apocalypse upon you all!

Well, the last question: I met you and Sabathan in Wacken this year, even if just for a greeting, and I'd like to know your opinion about an eventual participation of Enthroned to this festival. I saw the Immortal performance and, beyond the show itself, I didn't consider that the right dimension for a BM live show stands in these big festivals… What do you think?

            I think that Open air festivals are not really the right atmosphere for a BM band too, BUT Wacken is different because it is a pure Metal festival and you play for maniacs only. Some Open air festivals are on the other hand really good for Black Metal bands like the "Under the Black Sun", where bands starts to play when it starts to get dark. Enthroned will normally play in Wacken next year, but nothing is sure; it will be an honour to play there because, as I said, this is a festival for Maniacs only!

Ok Nornagest, thank you so much for you time and for the interview! Feel free to end as you want and / or to ask something to the writer if you want…

            Thanx for the interview and be therewhen we'll be crushing Italy next time!!!!
Hail Stanas Arra Agga Bandar!

We are waiting for your coming. Hails Nornagest !!