With scene giants like Nightwish or Within Temptation dominating the festival stages worldwide, reinforcement is on the way – Empress, who describe their intricate and energetic sound as symphonic power metal, might have just begun spreading their work three years back in 2019, but have steadily gained recognition among insider circles for their unique blend of different styles.
Building on Blackthorne’s powerful, versatile vocal abilities in seamless combination with Khavin’s composition skills, they manage to create a unique sonic world for listeners to explore, utilizing various vocal techniques, genre bending segues, and hard hitting riffs that force listeners to simply bow before Empress.
Thus, it isn’t a surprise that the Swedish producer Dan Swanö, renowned for his involvement with Heaven Shall Burn, Hypocrisy or Bloodbath was put in charge of mixing and mastering their first full-length album Fateweaver – carefully entwining musical universes that invite you to follow your imagination and brightest fantasies. Swanö himself has described Fateweaver by Empress as one of his “best mixes of melodic metal”.
Fateweaver by Empress is out now worldwide via SAOL.
The Interview
Greetings from Metalheads Forever Magazine, I’m Keith Clement, The Head Of The Magazine, How are you today?
I’m doing great, thank you for asking!
Your new album “Fateweaver” was out on August 19, Can you tell me about the songwriting and production behind the album?
Vlad Khavin is our guitarist and primary composer, and also handled primary recording duties. Len Carmichael of Landmine Studios did drum engineering, and none other than Dan Swanö handled mixing and mastering. This all took place over the course of 2021 into early 2022.
Was there any particular concept behind the album?
Not initially, but I noticed once writing was done that there seemed to be one that happened organically – and that’s the concept of fate. With the events of the last few years, I found destiny and fate heavy on my mind, and the question of “Are we bound by fate? Or bound to control it?” kept springing into my mind. How much control do we really have over our destinies? Not much, or more than we think? And so I think those thoughts snuck their way into my stories without my even realizing it and sort of informed them in that way.
Was there anything special you guys did last friday on the day of the release?
Yes! We were so fortunate that it worked out that we got to play Mad with Power festival on the day that our album came out. Being surrounded by so many friends old and new and getting to share that day with them was nothing short of truly special and a memory that we’ll cherish forever.
How’s the touring plans coming up for Empress?
So far, so good! A few details are being solidified and some more information will be made public on that very soon!
9 amazing Symphonic Power Metal awesomeness, Each song has the power, emotion and ambience with the most powerful vocals. How do you feel about the outcome of this album?
Thank you so much! We’re beyond pleased. We poured so much of ourselves into every note, and we believe that it shows – we hope that listeners will agree!
July 20, you released the video for “Eventide” . Can you tell me about the song and making of the video?
“Eventide” is a much more somber offering from us – it concerns grief, and the hope and peace that sleep brings to those in mourning. When I presented the lyrics, Vlad took the idea behind it and ran with it to create the story of the young couple you see in the music video. That video was shot in 2 different locations – the acting shots were filmed at a farmhouse we rented, and the performance shots were on a property located on a nature reserve. There was a lot of work and long hours that went into making these, but they were incredibly special and fun weekends spent with friends bringing a creative vision to life that we’ll always remember fondly.
Would you like to tell me about each member of the band and how you guys formed together as a band?
Well, the funny thing is that the band sort of came about by accident – Vlad had some songs he wanted to jam on with Mark, and Mark invited Joe to that initial session as well. The three of them meshed well together, and then began seeking out a vocalist and bassist to complete the lineup. Vlad came from a symphonic metal mindset, where as Joe and Mark came from more death metal oriented backgrounds. Nick is in another progressive-power metal outfit called Lör, and I’ve always had a huge love of Power and Symphonic metal. I think once we were all in a room together, we knew we could create music together that we had a feeling would really resonate with people.
2018 to till date how has the journey been for you guys?
It’s been a strange one! Mostly because we introduced ourselves to the world as a band in 2019, played a handful of shows, and then abruptly stopped because of the pandemic at the beginning of 2020. During 2021, we began working with Peter De Reyna (Seven Spires) and Paul Sellier of De Reyna Management, and went hard at work recording the album. So in many ways, 2022 feels like the *real* start of the band, and it feels so good to finally put ourselves out there properly.
Would you like to share some of the great moments you had since the start?
We’ve been extremely fortunate being the young band that we are to have had some of the opportunities we’ve had, and that’s certainly not lost on us! Playing at Mad with Power is still fresh in our minds, but that’s definitely a big one. Having Elisa C. Martin (one of my personal heroes!) of Dark Moor acknowledge and share our cover of “Maid of Orleans” is another huge moment for me. And just more generally, all of the support we’ve received and love that’s been shown to us at this early point in our career is overwhelming in the best way, and we are always so humbled by and grateful for that.
What would be some of the upcoming plans for the band?
Currently our plan is to continue reaching new eyes and ears through online content and playing more shows – hopefully not limited to North America! – and we hope to have some exciting news on that front sooner rather than later.
How do you look into the future?
I don’t want to say *too* much, but let’s just say that we are not ones to rest on our laurels and that writing for album #2 may or may not have already started.
Finally what would be the message for the fans?
Thank you so much, from the bottom of our hearts, for all of the incredibly kind words and massive amount of love we’ve been shown. We feel so welcomed and so happy to be here, and this is only the beginning! There’s much more to come, and we are so excited for you to take this journey with us.
Tracklist
01. Legion
02. Beyond the Sleep
03. Chimera
04. The Fall of Kingdoms
05. Black Arcana
06. Monarch
07. Into the Grey
08. Immortelle
09. Eventide
