You have a good cadenza, because every two years a new album has been released up to now. What can you tell about the writing and the making of the new album called ‘Loss’?
For sure it is an album that is more in touch with our emotions. It is a record where we did not bother too much if it should suit in a genre or within a box, so you hear a lot of different genres in what we are doing. The black metal is still there, but also –core elements, metalcore, dark pop. We just did whatever we felt like and so it is the most liberating album we ever did. We experimented a lot, not just with different instruments, but with song structures. It was the first time that we used way more female vocals, not just in the background or second vocals or layers, but also a song with just female vocals. There is so much that we did for the first time, that it feels very liberating and very refreshing. It might be a little bit a clash with some old school fans from what we did in the beginning, but well, it is evolution and I don’t think we should do the same things forever. We tend to change a lot on our sound, we evolve in our sound in my opinion, every two year as you said. And yeah it feels like after ten years, we evolved enough for me in order to not being bored with what we do.

One of the features I’d like to go deeper into is that you have evolved a lot as a singer. Much more clean vocals and sensitive vocals, just like in the music. What can you tell about this development, because there is a big difference between growls only and clean chants or even whispers…
First and foremost it is about not feeling ashamed with how your voice sounds like. I used to be very aware of how my singing voice would sound like and whether I developed it too much or not, because I always thought I could not sing. I think after you can push through that feeling of being ashamed of other people hearing you sing, that is a lot better. I was always being very subconscious about things I thought I was not good at and singing was one of them, so I think after pushing that through not being ashamed of having people next to me, hearing me sing and having a great band that is not there to judge, but mostly to help. It definitely created a safe environment for me to try things and once you push through that first moment, I think the sky is the limit. Then you can experiment and be silly with your voice and make stupid sounds in the studio because you are just trying to achieve something. It is far from being perfect, everything is very new to me and before every show I reinvented my way of warming up. I spend more than half an hour on my warm-ups and of course also all the cares and the boring stuff that vocalists have to do in order to do this for a while. I am starting to do that. I did not used to do that, but well it is a self-discovery kind of thing, this thinking world where you have to be aware of how your body is reacting to what you are doing and be more careful with what you are doing before and after the shows and even in your daily life. I enjoy this new adventure of singing and making different noises with your vocal chords.

Another element that leaps to the eye, especially in the last two tracks of the previous album and now on this album, there are more keyboards. Also a feature that has grown, isn’t it?
Yeah there are a lot of new instruments on this album. In some songs we even have like whale sounds, since we incorporated whales crying in the back in a song. There is organ, there are big orchestral arrangements, there are a lot of different sounds that we spent a lot of time creating and producing, not only at home but also in the studio. It definitely gives this layered feel to the songs.

‘LBRNTH’ is almost ambient…
Yeah, it is dark pop kind of song. Our guitar player does the female vocals. She already sang a bit on ‘Coma’ in the first song, but this album we wanted to use her vocals much more, because she sings really beautiful, it is definitely a big plus and something that I think worked really, really well for ‘Loss’.

The album title is ‘Loss’, but what can you tell about the lyrics? Is it all about losing something?
Or someone. I mean, it is an album about that, about the loss of someone, the loss of innocence, it is an album that deals with a lot of feelings like imposter syndrome, regret… it is a very personal record. For the first time we are writing about ourselves and not ideals and fiction or stuff that we saw in our touring life. It is an album about ourselves, of our traumas, of our shattered dreams and mostly about the sense of something not being there – in a sense of not belonging – you see that in songs like ‘Nomad’, the sense of missing someone in its true sense and songs like ‘Stardust’….

That is one of my favourite ones…
Awesome. There is also an empowering song there, ‘Phoenix’, it is the recent single we just released. It is very catchy. I wouldn’t all it a happy song, but of course, it is an empowering song, something that we never did. It is quite fun to play it, but it does have a deeper meaning. It is a song about the many moments that we had as a band in the past, where everything could have gone to shit and we would not be here right now if not pushing through. Somehow we survived those things and that is where the phoenix idea comes from in the song. There were a lot of moments and a lot of situations and people we worked with and people who were part of everything we did, it just did not work and created big competitions for the band. Well, we are still here. It is our song to help us remind that we are still fighting and stronger than ever.

What is the story behind the changing from Season of Mist to Century Media?
We had a really good run with Season of Mist. We were just a Portuguese local band before we signed with Season of Mist. They believed in us, they worked with us, very well. We had three albums with them: ‘Limbo’, ‘Mirage’ and ‘Coma’ and I think at some point last year, we realized that we could aim higher for different standards. Also our contract with Season of Mist was ending. So we got approached by Century Media, which were super kind with us and super creative. They really triggered the right things in us and we thought it would be a great opportunity to join a big label and try something different. And it has been great. They are super creative, they are super joyful to work with and that is exactly what we need. We need people who love what they do, but also they are creative. They are not office rats from a big company or something. Definitely not. They are really nice people, we visited them very often and so far it has been a great adventure with Century Media.

Let us go back to the track ‘Stardust’, that really stands out as last track. What is it about?
It is about a friend that I lost when I was a teenager. We were best friends and yeah… he passed away. We were like 15 or 16 years old. It really changed me as a person. It was the moment when you realize that you are not a teenager anymore and you are becoming an adult when something like that happens. It is something that I, throughout the years, buried a bit within my mind. I thought I had dealt with it the best way I could, but in recent years I realized how traumatic it was for me and how it shaped me as a person and this is my way of trying to deal with it. It does not cure anything, writing a song about it, but it definitely makes you see the world in a different perspective and talking about it definitely helps and this is my way of approaching it.