1.For those that have never heard of you before, can you tell us a little bit about the musical project?
Yes, Aldheorte is a black metal band, born out of Los Angeles, California. There wasn't some deeper purpose in our making music together, but rather just wanting to make black metal in a way we'd like to hear it. So far we've got an EP and the debut album 'Where Gods Have Eyes To See', released digitally in the summer of 2024 and on CD via Alte Seelen Records in December of 2024. And now we have our new album 'The Wild Divine' coming out on Solistitium Records on CD and Vinyl this March.
2.You have a new album coming out in March, musically how does it differ from the stuff you have released in the past?
I would say the first thing that's changed is the production is a bit fuller, more powerful. As for the songs themselves, I'd say there's a bit more variety to the types of riffs on offer. The first single, the title track, 'The Wild Divine', has maybe our only proper chorus in a song, featuring a fairly memorable accented palm muted riff. In my mind it was inspired by listening to a lot of Enslaved's 'Frost' and 'Eld' albums. Looking at the album more broadly, I'd say it's a bit more varied, and the lyrics this time are also varied. The debut album's lyrics had an air of old world devilry, nature, and things like that. It felt archaic. There's still a bit of that, but we cover a lot more ground now.
3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the newer music and also how would you describe your progress as songwriters over the years?
"Vanity and Ouroboros" deal more with human nature. Vanity is more existential in that we worry a lot about how we'll be remembered, but there's vanity in fooling ourselves that we'll be remembered for very long at all. Ouroboros is about groups of people kind of eating each other alive. Given enough time and the right reason, some people will be happy to see even friends or family fail or fall from grace in some way. By contrast, "Prayers to Fallen Gods" and "The Offering" are kind of like miniature stories. "Prayers..." being about the last devotee of some ancient religion, and "The Offering" as something of a short ghost story. "Hesperus" is sort of reflecting on a fictional relationship that ends in tragedy. I suppose it all boils down to finding things to relate to without getting too deeply personal. It's humanity, survival, love, and the ugliness in life that manifests itself in so many different ways.
4.I know that the band's name comes from Tad William's 'Memory Sorrow and Thorn' fantasy trilogy, can you tell us a little bit more about your interest in these novels?
I guess the band name being chosen that way was the result of recency bias. I'd only just recently before that been reading that first trilogy, and it was never our intent to be for Memory Sorrow and Thorn what Summoning was for Tolkien. I thionk of it as being more like Gorgoroth, where the lyrics really didn't have much to do with Tolkien at all, it was just the name of a forest in the books that we liked.
5.Can you tell us a little bit more about the artwork that is presented on the new album cover?
It was really just kind of a coincidence that I found and followed Vhan Artworks on instagram, and he happened to have several pieces already available that I thought fit the themes of the album really well. He's very talented and it just worked out really nicely. I wish there was something more to it than that, since I know it doesn't make for the most exciting answer in this context, but it really was just a coincidence and luck.
6.Currently there are only 2 members in the band, are you open to expanding the line-up or do you prefer to remain a duo?
No, I don't think that's terribly likely. We don't have any plans to play live, so anyone else we'd add would be just to write additional material, and I think we'd both be worried that it'd just muddy the waters, so to speak. Maybe someday we'd invite someone to play an instrument neither of us can play as a guest or something, but permanently adding anyone else isn't something we're considering at the moment.
7.The new album is going to be released on 'Solistitium Records', how did you get in contact with this label?
I'm rather proud to say they reached out to us through bandcamp and on social media about working together. When they reached out I told Carsten about how when I was younger a friend and I used to go back and forth over who had their versions of those Behemoth albums, Nocternity, Horna, Helheim and so on vs. the American version or re-releases. To have a label with that much history interested in putting out our music is an honor, and we're grateful to Solistitium for the opportunity.
8.On a worldwide level, how has the reaction been to your music by fans of black metal?
I feel like it's largely been pretty positive. We've had people send messages about songs that affected them in some way, which was very kind of them to do. But, I do think we both try not to make it a habit of getting too deeply invested in how people react to the music because there's going to be a wide spectrum of opinions. There are people who like black metal and hate 'In The Nightside Eclipse' or 'Bergtatt', and I'll never understand that, but I don't need to understand it because it's not my life, my ears, or my heart. Rhynn especially, he really doesn't engage with Aldheorte related stuff at all online and he avoids social media altogether, which I can't blame him for. Now, I'm not saying we're in that kind of league at all, I just use those albums as an example to point out that someone hates your favorite album, and all that you can really account for is how you feel about it.
9.Do any of the band members have any experience playing in other bands or musical projects?
Sure, but nothing terribly successful or exciting. We're just older guys who've spent our whole lives listening to black metal from the 90s on. We never grew out of it, and we're not likely to have an interest in wild experimentation or anything. The next album won't sound like Ephel Duath or Lux Occulta or something like that. I love some of those albums, but we're both big believers in the more orthodox sounds in black metal. The well is more than deep enough for us to pull our water from. Traditional black metal is so rich in sounds and textures and emotion, and I believe that's why there are so many great bands that continue to make that sound their own.
10.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?
It's obviously pretty early yet, but I feel kind of drawn towards something more atmospheric and earthy. I'd like to try and get some actual acoustic guitars into the sound, and maybe make something with a more unified sound song-to-song. Not a concept album, but something that flows together a bit more.
11.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?
It's funny that this was the next question, because in my head as I was answering the last question, I was thinking of stuff like Ulver's 'Bergtatt', or that first Stangarigel album. Djevel is a massive influence of course, as is a ton of various 90s bands. People have rightly picked up on Emperor, Enslaved, Borknagar, Taake, Gorgoroth, and more. But it's also been fun to see people mention bands that we hadn't really intended at all. They're not wrong to hear what they hear, but the one I've seen more often than I would have thought was Dissection. We do have a lot of melodic songs, but I think of Dissection as more Iron Maiden influenced with the twin guitar harmonies and stuff like that, but I think people hear Dissection in some of the leads and stuff like that.
I'm not sure about Rhynn, but as far as what I'm listening to nowadays, I quite enjoyed that new Yellow Eyes album from the end of last year. I really enjoyed Ulverhyrde's album, also on Solistitium last year, and the new single they just put out was great as well. Norrhem's album from last year was excellent. Others off the top of my head would be Nimbifer, Ebony Pendant, and that new Petrichor release from the guy from Blackbraid, which seems to be more raw, and it's more my speed than his main project. I'm also very eager to hear this last Djevel album. Trånn Ciekals dying is a great loss to black metal, and music in general.
12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?
I appreciate you taking the time to talk about the album and I hope people get something out of it.
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