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One of my favorite bands from the early 90s didn't stick around for too long. After only two albums, UNANIMATED disappeared.
To this day, I still often find myself humming parts of songs off of In the Forest of the Dreaming Dead. The second album,
Ancient God of Evil was great as well, but I always wanted just one more album from them. After all these years, I finally
have it. And so do all of you, of course. Lately, it seems like we've been getting some really great albums from these
band reunions. In the Light of Darkness is up near the top of that list. Here's vocalist Micke Jansson.
What prompted the reunion?
We have always-- the four of us, since the “split-up”, been talking about a reunion. It was never meant for the band to sleep
for so long. But due to things like other bands, drugs, prison sentences ups and downs in personal life and a whole lot
of other shit you can imagine in this sweet world of shit. There has just not been possible for a reunion... until now.
Why did the band break up in the first place?
We came to a point when we felt no support from our record label, who did absolutely nothing for us. Actually, I recall they
did no promotion for us what so ever. And at that time we all had other bands we wanted to move on with to. We did not feel
any good response from our Ancient God of Evil album just yet. So we decided to take a small break, that unfortunately
lasted for almost fourteen years.
Are there plans for touring? Did you play much even the first time around?
Before we took that “small” break, we did mostly play around Sweden. But I would not go that far to say that there were
many of them, I could almost count them on my two hands. We had no one to promote us and did get most of our gigs by our own.
I guess the demand wasn't that great at that time. We have a lot of plans and the demand is bigger then ever, but nothing
is a hundred percent. So we´ll have to wait and see what will happen, one thing is for sure though, we will play live shortly.
Will this be a one-off? Or do you even know yet?
This is very serious for us, no playing araound. We have worked hard with this album and to finally reunite UNANIMATED.
For several years we have waited to but the pieces together. Our motivation is strong... fourteen years of hunger!
Was it hard to get the "UNANIMATED sound" back, both in terms of instrument tone and the production sound?
The production sound we´ll have to thank Tore Stjerna for that marvelous work, he really listened to us and brought forth
exactly what we wanted on the album. I dont think this is the typical UNANIMATED sound at all, this is so much more brutal
and raw than any of the other albums, more complete and honest to ourselves. I am personally more satisfied with
In the Light of Darkness, I believe this is our best album yet.
Has there been a lot of interest since you announced you were getting back together? And I don't mean from
friends on Myspace who never heard of you before!
The response has been great so far, I can not recall having written so many interviews as I have at this time ever. And
from what I´ve heard from our record label, the album is doing great too. And of course, the demand for live performances
has never been more of a interest before.
Would you say the reunion is more for you guys or for the fans?
The reunion is for UNANIMATED we have always felt that we had more to give upon this world. And did not want
The Ancient God of Evil album to be our closure. That did not feel like a worthy ending for us, but UNANIMATED
was never dead. We wanted to give our fans more, so I guess you could say in a way that the reunion was for UNANIMATED's
fans and for ourselves.
Are the songs all completely new, or are some made from things you came up with years ago and have held on to?
We have some material on the album that are at least ten years or older, the song “The Unconquered One” is the oldest.
And that one was basically made just before the split-up, all we did was some changes with the songs arrangements. And
we have “Enemy of the Son” that Richard and Jojje started on ten years ago. All the details we finished in the studio.
All songs on the album were more or less completed in the studio, we rehearsed two weeks before the studio in WATAIN's place
that we borroved a couple of times. That was it. It all came natural to us in the studio, it seamed like we never took a
break at all.
Not everyone came back... were they just not interested?
There has only been the four of us the last fourteen years, since the break. If you are talking about Daniel Lofthagen,
the bass player on In the Forest of the Dreaming Dead album, he left the band shortly after the recording for
personal reasons. And if you are refering to Jonas Mellberg, he was fired from the band after some disagreements.
I guess you could also mean Jocke Westman, the keyboard player. He was actually never in the band as a member,
only a session member live and in the studio. So, the interest was never a queston.
Do you guys plan to remain a four piece? The old songs were written for two guitars... what will be done about them?
The new songs are also written for two guitars, that is a little bit of a dilemma but not a problem. We do have a guitarist
that will play with us live, he is known for his skills in his current old swedish death metal band, which is well known.
But I wont tell you who he is just yet. Last year at Party San Festival, we had Eric Wallin of MERCILESS on the other guitar
playing for us. Unlucky, he had other plans, or he would still be playing with us.
Alongside DISSECTION and AT THE GATES to an extent, you were one of the first death metal bands to really incorporate a
lot of melody in your songs. Looking at where things went after you originally broke up, are you surprised at all that
melodic became the way to go, and that bands got "lighter" instead of "heavier"?
No, I must say that I am not surprised at all. I think we have seen that development the last couple of years. It is tragic
but not surprising. But I am no one to judge someone else's style, we have different ways of truth. They do their
thing and we are doing ours, there is no connection or comparison between us what so ever. That is my opinon.
Final comments are yours! Thanks for coming back to kick the scene square in the ass!
First of all, we want to thank our fans. Second, the Firestorm is coming!! Hail the hordes!!!
