Let us focus on one of the most important features, the lyrics. It seems that the lyrics explore Plato’s theory of the soul further, but that was not planned or the intention from the beginning. Can you tell a bit more about that?
Like I said throughout the whole interview cycle, I don’t think the label or the press release was right. It is not true from the perspective of a conceptual album, like some of our other albums are. So I think there was a kind of misunderstanding there. We did discuss Plato‘s ‘Allegory of the Cave’, because that was something that I found compelled to talk about last time for the previous album, because you know, we dived pretty deep into philosophy for the inspiration of that album. This time around it is not really the same, it is not a concept album in that sense and the reason why Plato was brought in, was because he was the main philosopher who brought that train of thought into the western world, which later became the central thesis of Agnosticism, which is a passion of mine when it comes to how I view things from the world, like a spiritual angle. So it is not really an album about that allegorical soul. Personal I think what the label meant, was that allegorical decay. It is there in the background, because I am talking for instance about ‘Lethe’, the river of forgetfulness which is the song that ends the album and of course that is where Plato talks about when it comes to the reincarnation matrix that we are kind of doomed to forget our past lives. This is the reason for a soul form process where, almost like in ‘The Matrix’, it is basically an allegory where we are fed with all our fears and our impulses and our suffering basically. We are stuck in a kind of limited construction, because we are in a state of amnesia, we are species of amnesia. That’s what I mean by ‘Lethe’, I think in that song it is very straight forward. I am using some Greek and other things; ways to dress my philosophical personal dispositions in the lyrics. It makes it a little bit more appealing, since I usually like to write in symbolism and metaphors and stuff, but I am using Asteria, the Greek goddess, also in the title which is not necessarily about her in the actual lyric, it is more that I want the lyric to appeal to others. That is why I not try to tell the story from a very direct perspective, because I want the listener to find things they can relate to. So that they feel less lonely in this world, which is important I think, because this is how I relate to music. It has been my angel on my shoulder for as long as I have been living. I have always felt as an outsider. It was always a beautiful thing to me that I realized when reading lyrics and later when I started to read poetry, that there were people who actually felt this way. It is probably the main reason why I felt compelled to maintain this and also found a kind of a reason… to exist (maybe). So I am using different aspects here, like existential ancst and thoughts about life and death, God, asking questions. I am using the death experience and all of that, even dreams. Like the first song ‘I Welcome Thy Arrow’, is based on a dream that haunted me several times. It kind of updated itself and it became very vivid in my life. I felt like I was alone in the forest instead of being lost in the ocean, because life is like an ocean where we have to constantly struggle to keep you on the surface, so you don’t drown, but I found myself like lost in the wilderness, kind of alone. So it was almost like some kind of Greek mythological haunting where she was trying to haunt me while I was trying to seek her. We were looking for each other in this lost forest, because I was welcoming her arrow. It was a kind of romanticized death wish with a mythological flair to it. And that idea repeated itself many times in my dreams. I was like reborn in the end of the song and that is why the song ends in a bit victorious manner. Now I can get to sleep and I have overcome this not winnable war and there is light… not at the end of the tunnel, but it has light in the darkness.

Usually you perform the narration yourself, but now there is a narrator. Is there a specific reason for that?
There is a narrator in two of the songs, Simon Bibby from My Silent Wake and Seventh Angel. We wanted to use him in a song on the bonus CD. There were a couple of instances, quite late in the process, where we wanted assistance on a couple of parts and I really wanted some other kind of timbre than the words of my own, more mythical and he is better at acting. So in the end he did it on two songs and I did some narrations as well. So it is not just him. I would say that I actually wanted a bit more narrations on this album. But Johan didn’t. It was a very confused process, the whole vocal and lyrical process for me this time, so we just went with it and I saved some ideas that I had for the next album or some other songs that we never recorded for the album.

Indeed, with ‘In Somnolent Ruin’ there already comes a special edition with two bonus tracks as I am informed well, so you must have a lot of material left I guess?
Yes, there are two songs on that one, ‘Dominion’ and ‘This Too Shall Pass’. The thing is that we wanted to have some extra songs to have bonus material and we have more bonus material also, we may release this at a later point, because what ended upon the album is only half of what we have been writing. We have a lot of demo material since the last album six years ago. It has been a very long process, unfortunately, but a lot of things have happened, in the world and in the band. There has been plenty of song ideas throughout. I don’t think I want to wait another six years. I am not getting any younger. It is time to get things moving. Now I feel that we have a strong line-up in the band. There are no issues like it was before and I don’t see any reason why there would be obstacles, even when it goes about inspiration and we know that we are all better musicians and performers and we are still having all these ideas and these songs left. I think there is going to be some new material – I won’t promise anything, but – we have things in the making as we speak.