We talked a lot of times before since the first album, but in the recent past I remember you decided to take a break in 2020 and that break turned out longer than expected of course. When did you actually felt ready to create a new record?
In the beginning of 2019, we decided that we would finish what we had already booked for that year – all the tours and the festivals that we had booked – and after the year we would take a break and put the band on ice, at least for one year. Just not think about it at all, because it was getting kind of too much for us. The band is not our job. We all have full time work and families and stuff. It was just getting a little bit too much and we wanted to put the band on ice for some time and focus on other stuff. Then we already had decided to go on tour with Finntroll – it was in 2021 I think – but covid-19 was still ongoing, so the tour had to be postponed. It did not happen until late last year, in 2022. So the break for us was like two and a half year or something, but it was fine with us to step away from the band for this period, because when we could eventually do the Finntroll tour, and start playing shows again, we were all just into starting the band again. We were very focused and hungry to play music again and it somehow just happened immediately after when we started to play, we talked about making a new album, because that is how we work as a band and as musicians. We always have to be creating something. So it was almost immediately after we started rehearsing and playing show that we started talking about making a new album. We spent last winter writing songs for the new album and then we went into the studio in March and recorded. I am really happy with this album.

Then tell me why exactly…
Well, I don’t know. It is of course a record to be back in business with the band, but I feel with the band, after the break, it is good to take a step back and relax and look back at the things you have done in the past. Start missing the guys, start missing the band and get the hunger and get the motivation back, but I also feel that, this time around, this album is very…. It feels like we have everything under control on this album. Each and every song on the album is somehow ‘not forced’ in any way. It is what came natural for us.

I think you can hear that. If you listen to the album, it has a kind of agreeable flow…
Yes and I feel like everything on the album is there for a reason, there is nothing we kind of forcing into songs on the album, that is at least how I feel about it. We have the album and the music all very much under control and some people around me who have listened to the album, they have used the word it is kind of a more mature version of Skálmöld.

There are specific themes on the album. Maybe we can go a little bit deeper into that. It is a story of Ullur, that is also projected in three Norns, representing the past, present and future…
Every album that we have released so far, has a story that has been told throughout the album or at least, like ‘Vögguvisur Yggdrasils’, our fourth album, it was not a story, but all the songs had the same theme so to speak. Snæbjörn, who is our bass player, he writes all the lyrics and for him, he uses this form to have like a story or a theme which we decide on beforehand. It makes it easier for him to actually write the lyrics themselves, because that way the lyrics have some purpose and some direction. It is not like: ‘this song is about Norns’ and ‘this song is about an axe’ and ‘this song is about warriors’ or whatever, somehow it gives him a more focused energy for the lyrics and this time around we are telling a story of the god Ullur who is not a very well-known god in the Nordic mythology and it is very little that is written about him in the old books. He has like two or three sentences or something. It is that little. For Snæbjörn, it was not negative for him, because taking a lesser known character from Norse mythology, gave him much more freedom to build around the story. So we are not telling a story about a well-known figure in Norse mythology where everybody who had been in the stuff have their own opinion and ideas about the figures, but Ullur is like a character which we can almost build around him whatever you like, what you want to. Ullur is a god who lives in Ýdalir – which is the title of the album – Ullur’s home and in Ýdalir, the trees that grow there are – according to the stories – very well suited for bows and arrows and skies. So it is a god of archery and also a god of skiing (laughs). In our version of Ýdalir and Ullur, his home in Ýdalir is attacked by Niðhöggr, which is a serpent who lives under the world tree. He attacks Ýdalir and Ullur and his folks are forced to flee and leave their own home. In the story we follow Ullur and his people one day, gathering their strength again to fight the serpent and drive him out of Ýdalir again. So it is a very basic story about the hero, something bad happens and they take revenge.

The world tree is Yggdrasil, isn’t it?
Yes. Into the story we have also put the Norns of fate who decide the fate of all men. We have the three main Norns there, Urður, Verðandi and Skuld. One of them is the past, one of them is present and one is future and they are also telling the story of Ullur. We get to hear their version and their sort of advice to Ullur.

And does it differ a lot?
It differs in a way that Urður is like the Norn of the past. She is very, very cold, harsh and aggressive.

Verðandi is the Norn of the present and she is very, very neutral. She just tells things like they are, nothing more and nothing less. Just tell it like it is and then we have the Norn of the future, Skuld and she is very dreamy, almost like an art figure in a way. In a way there is hope for the future. Because the main story is very small in a way, we extended the story by putting the Norns in it and they are also just cool characters (chuckles) to sing about and it is very nice to include some lesser known characters of mythology into our music to introduce them to other people and not always sing about Thor and Odin, but get the other characters there as well.

I applaud that, because I never heard of Ullur before…
Yeah and in a way it is up to us, people, to keep these stories alive by sharing them with others.

I think that still lives in Iceland, because it is an island and it is a bit separated from the rest of the world, so the perfect environment to save your authenticity…
Yes and it is taught in schools still to some degree. We try to keep our culture alive, with respect.

You also sing in Icelandic language and it seems to be appreciated a lot too. After Wacken Open Air I visited the Icelandic news site www.visir.is and I read that the President of Iceland visited WOA. Please tell me about that… what was happening?
So… what was happening at Wacken, is that this year, there were four Icelandic bands playing at Wacken and I think that is remarkable for such a small country, to have playing four bands at one of the biggest metal festivals in the world and I think it was mainly due to the manager of the Wacken metal battle. He has been organizing trips for people to Wacken for more than 15 or 20 years where people can buy tickets and travel from Iceland to Wacken in a large group and I think it was him who had the idea for inviting the President to Wacken, because he felt that it was remarkable that we had four bands playing there from Iceland. The people from Wacken just found this a very cool idea and they arranged a panel on Saturday with the Icelandic President where he was talking about heavy metal and mythology and old stories with journalists and the President of Wacken and stuff. The President is just a very normal and cool guy. He has been to Skálmöld shows many, many times. He has been to numerous shows of Skálmöld and he always comes backstage.