Interview by Kris Peters
Nine years is a long time in music, especially in the modern age where people's attention spans are diminishing almost by the hour.
But that is precisely how long it has been between albums for Swedish metal pioneers Scar Symmetry, who return on June 9 with their stunning new album The Singularity Phase II Xenotaph.
The album has been described as seeing Scar Symmetry "back with a massive new sound that will blow listeners away" and as "the most brutal record Scar Symmetry have ever made".
It is the follow up to 2014s The Singularity Phase 1 Neohumanity and further explores the themes and ideologies expressed on that album.
Make no mistake, this is a heavy album both conceptually and musically, and one which founding member and guitarist Per Nilsson is extremely proud of, as evident in the time he spent recently with HEAVY.
"It's feeling quite unreal," he spoke of the imminent release of the album. "The first single was released March 31st, so new music has been out now for two months but the feeling of putting that very first single out - which was on the day of the first show we did with Meshuggah on their arena tour here in Sweden - so we got to play a big show and premiere the song in front of a few thousand people. Even though the song dropped that day, there were people singing along to the chorus in the audience which was an amazing, sweet moment."
We press Nilsson on the musical nature of the album.
"This is part two of a trilogy that we're working on, and before we even wrote a single note of music we came up with a synopsis of what we wanted to do. It's about the technological singularity; the rise of artificial intelligence and what happens with that. Each phase deals with its own part of the storyline. Phase one deals with the rise of artificial intelligence, neo humans that are people who have augmented themselves with technology and what happens when the A.I turns malevolent. So, phase one has some upbeat moments musically when you can feel the promise of the new technology but then it turns really dark at A.I and the neo humans as they wage war upon the unmodified mankind - which is the majority of people. So the album starts in war and disaster. Phase two picks up where phase one left off with the technocalyptic cybergeddon. The very first song - which is the second single we released - starts in a similar fashion as Technocalyptic with some really intense blast beats and the song is very intense. In the mid section there is a melody in the riff that was occurring in Technocalyptic that is presented now in a different fashion. It kind of ties the two albums together, but then it goes off into this story of in this crazy, brutal war suddenly aliens show up..."
To find out the rest of the storyline listen to the full interview, where Per also talks more about the musical side of the album, writing to a concept, what the band has been up to in the last nine years, the continuing concept, how difficult it is writing music to a themed storyline, if the band will continue to do that in the future, touring plans and more.