Interview with Caladan Brood
by blackholeparadise
As far as debut records go, you won’t come across a more ambitious, polished and beautiful piece than Caladan Brood’s ‘Echoes of Battle’. The American two-piece have taken their love for fantasy-inspired black metal and built a truly immersive 71-minute masterpiece, thematically based on the ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’ – a fictional fantasy series written by Canadian author Steven Erikson. I interview mysterious members Mortal Sword and Shield Anvil for SoundShock Webzine, to find out more on the band’s love of fantasy, Summoning and the recording of their untouchable debut album.

The whole of ‘Echoes Of Battle’ really engulfs the listener from start to finish, taking them to a fantastical land completely removed from reality. Was it your initial intention to invoke this escapism for the listener? What kind of atmosphere do you want to craft with your music?
Caladan Brood: Yes, absolutely. Our music is fantasy-themed, and as such, escapism is integral to the atmosphere. If you found the music immersive, then we achieved what we set out to do.

When did Shield Anvil and Mortal Sword realise their ambitions with Caladan Brood? How did the band come to fruition?
CB: Caladan Brood was really just born out of our mutual love for bands like Summoning and Elffor, and for Malazan Book of the Fallen and fantasy literature/gaming in general.

What was it about the ‘Malazan Book Of The Fallen’ that inspired you both to write about it?
CB: It is a truly immersive, gritty fantasy world, with a deep, rich history, diverse cultures, and an enormous, colourful cast of characters. The story itself is truly epic, spanning a vast, war-torn world comprised of multiple continents, complex societies, gripping battles, and plot arcs that, as readers, we found ourselves very invested in. It provides us with a lot to explore thematically, and we feel that ‘Malazan Book of the Fallen’, with its dark atmosphere and massive scope, provides a perfect backdrop for this style of music. We are passionate about these books and we hope that fans of the series enjoy our musical tribute to it.

You took the Caladan Brood name from the warlord of the same name. Why this particular character?
CB: Caladan Brood is a character who wields a vast amount of power, but whose background remains largely veiled throughout the series. We liked this dichotomy of might and mystery, and once we toyed with the idea of naming our project after him, it just sort of stuck.

Obviously, the album is directly inspired by the Malazan Empire and the extensive war-torn tales that Steven Erikson writes about. As far as the fantasy fiction genre goes, are you interested in any other series of fantasy?
CB: Absolutely. Both of us are insatiable readers of fantasy and science-fiction; Tolkien, Moorcock, Jordan, Cook, Donaldson, Howard, and everything in between. We are also avid gamers, and our experiences with the soudtracks from games such as the Elder Scrolls series, Diablo I & II, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Heroes of Might and Magic, and similar titles have influenced our music to no small degree.

Musically, there’s so much going on in ‘Echoes Of Battle’. There are layers of melodic black metal riffage, sad but expansive orchestral sections, gentle folk twists, beautiful piano and gorgeous vocal harmonies. How did you put all of this together in the studio?
CB: Well, the ‘studio’ was really just a home computer, haha. The vocal recordings and final mastering were done at a friend’s home studio, and we feel that he did wonderful job taking our mixes and giving them an extra dimension of richness and quality. He worked very closely with us during this final mastering process and we are very happy with the result. As far as the music itself goes, we just wanted to pay close attention to the arrangements. With songs as long as the ones on the album, it can be tricky to keep everything cohesive and interesting; in some ways we succeeded, in other ways we probably failed. Either way, we learned a lot throughout the recording of ‘Echoes of Battle’, and we had a lot of fun putting it together.

In your music, there can be some brief and very general comparisons to Summoning. Judging by ‘Echoes Of Battle’, Caladan Brood definitely cannot be mistaken for anything other than Caladan Brood – you have created an entirely new realm of fantasy-based music. How much inspiration did you take from Summoning?
CB: It is self-evident that the primary influence heard in our music is Summoning. They are a band that we respect deeply and we really just wanted to try our hand at creating something that that is rooted in their style but which has its own little flourishes here and there. We didn’t set out to create anything innovative, new, or different; we just wanted to create more music in the Summoning vein. There are, of course, other influences as well, which are evident in the parts of the album that aren’t quite so blatantly Summoning-esque. That being said, we are fully aware that we will never escape the Summoning comparisons – and it isn’t something we are striving to escape anyway. There will, of course, be people who cry foul of the fact that we took so much influence from such a unique band; but, on the other hand, there are a lot of people who are happy to have more bands creating music in this style. We do feel that what we ended up with is an album that does a bit of its own thing with the foundation laid down by Summoning, which was our intention in the first place. We have never and will never make any claims to ‘originality’ or ‘innovation’, because that’s simply not our goal. We’re just channeling our favourite influences and having a great time doing it.

With regards to Tolkien-inspired metal, there have been many, many great bands. But there’s not been many projects that are so thematically focused on the ‘Malazan Book Of The Fallen’. In the same way that Tolkien’s works have incited hugely ambitious projects like Summoning and Elffor, do you think that you could well be creating renewed interest in Erikson’s works and are perhaps pioneering a new form of fantasy metal?
CB: Well, we certainly aren’t pioneering anything, haha. Fantasy-themed black metal is nothing new, and we aren’t really doing anything innovative with it – but, as mentioned above, that wasn’t our goal in the first place. But it would be wonderful if, through exploring our music, people take it upon themselves to look into Malazan Book of the Fallen. We have actually received a number of emails from people telling us they have been reading ‘Malazan…’ thanks to discovering it through listening to our album, and that’s a very rewarding reaction to hear. Since ‘Malazan…’ hasn’t been around for as long as the works of Tolkien, Moorcock, Howard, Lovecraft, or many of the other writers whose bodies of work are oft looked to by metal bands for inspiration, its impact on the genre has been much smaller; however, that doesn’t diminish the quality of the works and the superb world-building presented by Erikson and Esslemont, nor how well-suited the books are to providing a thematic backdrop for metal music in general.

What other sounds, artists and bands have inspired you both?
CB: Besides Summoning, we are influenced by the likes of Elffor, Nazgûl, Graveland, Vordven, early Nokturnal Mortum, and others. There are also touches of bands such as Viking-era Bathory and Moonsorrow at times. We also pulled a lot from medieval/fantasy ambient such as Mantle of Dust, Lord Wind, and the like, and, as mentioned above, game soundtracks have left an indelible mark on our music, particularly the likes of Elder Scrolls, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Diablo I & II, Heroes of Might and Magic, and others.

How would you feel about doing the soundtrack to a film?
CB: It would be a fun experience, but not something that would really be suited to Caladan Brood, haha.

Would you ever be interested in bringing in a drummer?
CB: No, not particularly. The sequenced drums lend a certain atmosphere to the music that we actually enjoy. It would feel out of place to us to use acoustic drums.

Would it be a fair assumption to say that Caladan Brood will never be a live touring band?
CB: Yes, that is fair and correct assumption.

We’ve heard that you’re already working on new material. How is it shaping up?
CB: It’s shaping up well. We have quite a bit of material that was recorded during the ‘Echoes of Battle’ sessions but didn’t make it onto the album, so we are reworking some of those songs to either use as an EP or to build upon for a follow-up full-length.

What plans do you have for the rest of the year?
CB: Essentially what was mentioned above; reworking some of the songs that never got properly finished and working toward putting together another release.

‘Echoes of Battle’ is out now on Northern Silence.

Interview by Calum Robson.

Interview with Shield Anvil and Mortal Sword

Interview conducted by Sargon the Terrible

Date online: February 18, 2013

Caladan Brood have come out of nowhere (or more accurately from Salt Lake City) with an astonishing debut album with the epic Echoes of Battle. Mixing the atmospheric mastery of Summoning with the epic sweep of Moonsorrow, this album is destined to make waves. I was fortunate to get a few words from the enigmatic Shield Anvil and Mortal Sword about the creation of this amazing album.

Sargon: Salt Lake City isn't exactly a hotbed of metal bands, tell us how Caladan Brood came together.

CB: There are actually some fantastic bands here, they're just few and far between. Caladan Brood came together through our mutual love of fantasy literature and metal. We are both die-hard fans of bands such as Summoning, Elffor, and Nazgûl, so we decided to try our own hand at creating music in that style while dedicating the lyrics to our favourite books.

Sargon: So there are just two of you in the band?

CB: That is correct.

Sargon: For those not in the know, can you explain the band's name?

CB: Caladan Brood is a character from the Malazan Book of the Fallen book series by Steven Erikson. Science-fiction enthusiasts may also recognize Caladan as the name of the planet on which Frank Herbert's Dune was set, which is unrelated to our music but cool nonetheless.

Sargon: What bands have really inspired the sound of Echoes of Battle?

CB: Summoning, Elffor, Nazgûl, early Nokturnal Mortum, and related bands are the primary influence, as well as stuff such as Bathory and Moonsorrow. As far as non-metal influences go, we pulled from medieval/fantasy ambient such as Mantle of Dust, Lord Wind, Wongraven, and the like. We are also undeniably influenced by our favourite game soundtracks, including Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Diablo I & II, the Elder Scrolls games, and Heroes of Might & Magic, to name a few.

Sargon: The album sounds very polished, especially for an unsigned band. How did you get that great sound?

CB: The entire album was engineered, recorded, and mixed on a home computer, and then taken to a friend's home studio for vocal recordings and final mixing, mastering, and engineering.

Sargon: How did you record those choral parts?

CB: It's just standard, straightforward vocal layering (so the clean vocal parts were recorded numerous times and 'layered' over one another to achieve the effect). For the most part, it's a single person's voice layered somewhere on the order of 8-12 times depending on the part, but in the case of bits like the very end of Book of the Fallen, we actually layered numerous different people's voices to achieve a larger 'group chant' feeling.

Sargon: How long did it take to write and record the album?

CB: That's kind of a difficult question to answer, actually. We had a couple of songs that were written back in 2008, but we ended up not using any of them except for what eventually became the song 'Echoes of Battle'. Over the following year or two, we eventually pieced together riffs and ideas until we had the track list for what was to become the album. Once we had the foundations laid for the six songs, we would work on them sporadically, sometimes letting them sit for months at a time before returning to them (largely due to life, school, and work obligations). So we started the band in 2008, but it isn't really accurate to say that we spent 4 solid years working on the album, haha.

Sargon: What are your future plans for Caladan Brood?

CB: We do have somewhere on the order of 30-40 minutes of material that was written during production but never got fleshed out into finished songs, so we are considering reworking them and releasing them as an EP or using them as the starting point for the next full-length.

Sargon: Where can people get the album now it's been released?

CB: Directly from us or from the Northern Silence webstore: http://shop.northern-silence.de/index.php?lang=en

7/30/2013
Interview - Caladan Brood - "Music has always been something that both of us are deeply passionate about"

Caladan Brood is an american epic black metal band, founded by two guys in 2008. In 2013 they released their debut album "Echeos of Battle", which got quite big notoriety in the metal underground. Thoroughly deserved, in my opinion, as it brings us more than one hour of music on really high level. Read below what authors of this LP had to say about their musical inspirations, fantasy literature and some other things. Maybe they aren't the most talkative persons in the universe, but I think you'll get a proper view on their creativeness.

1.Hello! You started with your band in the year 2008, but your debut album was released in 2013. Why it took you so long?
Simply put, life kept getting in the way. There were extended periods where the album would sit untouched for months at a time due to school, work, and other obligations. It felt really great to finally arrive at the finished product!

2.Your album brings a lot of epic and melancholic tunes. It's very monumental, and when I listen to it I feel a lot of sorrow. Why did you decided to play such music? Do you think there is lack of bands playing similar stuff?
Music has always been something that both of us are deeply passionate about. We settled on this genre since we are huge fans of bands such as Summoning, Elffor, Nazgûl, and other similar groups, and we wanted to try our own take on that style. There is a pretty good number of bands playing keyboard-driven medieval/fantasy black metal, but perhaps not in this particular vein.

3.It is impossible to say that Summoning wasn't your big inspiration. Why do you love this particular band so much?
We love Summoning because they truly translate an immersive atmosphere through their music in a deeply sincere and truly unique fashion.

4. I would say that even if you were inspired by Austrians, your music is much more calmer. There is also way more folk elements in it. Can you agree with me? To be honest when I listen to “Echeos of Battle” I always think more about vast, wild landscapes and graves of fallen heroes than about great battles.
There are some moments where folk elements appear in our music, but the focus is on medieval sounds, not necessarily folk.

5 What are your other musical inspirations? Metal bands, movie soundtracks, maybe some traditional folk music from Europe?
Yes, we take a lot of inspiration from film scores. We are also heavily influenced by game soundtracks such as the Elder Scrolls series, Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, Diablo I & II, etc. From the metal side of things, we drew inspiration from the obvious artists such as Summoning, Elffor, Nazgûl, early Nokturnal Mortum, Graveland, Vordven, and other black metal bands with epic, medieval, or fantasy themes, and we were also influenced by bands such as Bathory and Moonsorrow, as well as medieval/fantasy ambient (I’ve noticed people on the internet calling it ‘dungeon synth’ lately) such as Mantle of Dust, Lord Wind, Wongraven, etc.

6. You label your music as epic black metal. Yet for many people black metal must be raw and dark. How's important this “genre” thing to you?
We didn’t want to invent some fake genre that doesn’t exist in a pretentious attempt to make ourselves ‘stand out’. We call it epic black metal because it informs the listener that the songs will be long and include orchestral arrangements juxtaposed with tremolo-picked guitar work and screeching harsh vocals.

7. When it comes to lyrics, you based them on the world of “Malazan Book of the Fallen”. Why did you choose this particular world, and not I.G. very popular now Middle-Earth or Conan's universe?
The Malazan Book of the Fallen is our favourite fantasy series and it allows us a lot of material and thematic elements to explore within the context of our music. Middle-earth is a wonderful literary universe, but it has been done so many times that we couldn’t have possibly added anything new on that front. Robert E. Howard’s hyperborean world is another literary universe that we are very fond of, but its more barbaric, rough-hewn nature and adventurous swords-and-sorcery approach makes it more suited to traditional heavy metal bands like Manilla Road or epic doom metal bands.

8.You also named your band after one of “Malazan...” heroes. Why did you choose Caladan Brood? What is special about this character?
Caladan Brood is a character who wields a vast amount of power, but very little is revealed about him throughout the series. We felt that the aspects of power and mystery made him a fitting character for a band name.

9. What are your plans for the future? Are you currently working on the next album? And which music direction will you choose? There will be more epic tunes or aggression and fury? Or maybe something else?
We are always creating music. Our music will still be the same genre, but we will of course look to develop new themes without our style.

10. I know that currently there are only 2 members in your band, but did you consider to play live gigs?
No, we do not play live gigs.

11. You are bounded with Northern Silence, and it seems that they promote you quite well. They will release a LP version of “Echeos...”, it was your idea to do it? And what do you think about collaboration with them?
Northern Silence usually does vinyl issues of their releases (which is great, since we love listening to music in this format). We love working with Northern Silence; it is a supportive label that is passionate about what it does, and they really let us have creative control over our releases.

12. You told me many people think that you have something in common with vikings and paganism. Is it not strange that even if they can easily check everything via internet, they are still to lazy to do it? Don't you think internet, which should be a tool for getting knowledge, paradoxically make people only more indolent?
Yes, it is strange that so many people are so quick to jump to conclusions. We get called ‘pagan metal’ quite often, which isn’t true at all; we are a non-religious band. Just because there are keyboards in our music doesn’t mean we are religious. But people will think what they’d like to think. Once you’ve released an album, you are no longer in control of how people will percieve it.

13. I touched a paganism topic. I know that there is a growing number of asatru (germanic pagans) in USA. Do you think there is a point in being pagan in America? Also, do you personally have any interest in European myths and legends?
We are definitely interested in European myth, legend, and folklore from a literary standpoint, not a religious one. As for your question as to whether or not there’s any point in being pagan in the United States, I suppose there’s the same point in that as there is in being a member of any religion; it serves some sort of personal reinforcement of a worldview. As for us, as I stated above, we are non-religious people and our music is non-religious music. It is about fantasy literature and themes that tie in with said literature.

14. When I saw a cover art of your debut (great picture by the way), I immadietely thought “they must be from England” hehe. How it is to live and play such a music in this city? To be honest when I think “Salt Lake City” I have only Mormons and Winter Olimpics in my mind haha!
You wouldn’t be alone in that, haha. It’s fine playing this kind of music here. There is a metal scene here, albeit a very small one. In fact, it has probably been beneficial to us since people seem to be curious about hearing a metal band from the land of the Mormons, haha.

15. You seem to be a big fan of fantasy literature, so can you recommend some books and films that you really like?
Besides Malazan, we can recommend the works of Robert E. Howard, the Elric saga by Michael Moorcock, The Black Company and Dread Empire series by Glenn Cook, The Saxon Tales by Bernard Cornwell, The Horus Heresy series (various authors). Some films we’ve enjoyed recently with medieval or fantasy themes include Ironclad, Centurion, and Black Death. Naming things like this that we enjoy is always stressful since we always forget to include important titles, haha. You get the idea, though.

16. Some time ago we could see a new movie by Peter Jacksson – “The Hobbit”. What do you think about it? For me a movie was only OK, but nothing more. They wanted to make another “LOTR” based on the book for kids, and it simply failed...
Well, seeing as The Hobbit is a children’s book, it stands to reason that they’d approach it from the standpoint of a children’s film. It was too cartoony for our tastes, but not a complete failure.

17. OK, last question for you. What was the last metal and last non-metal album that you have listened to and made on you big impression?
This should come as no surprise, but the new Summoning album has of course been wondrous for us, especially with it being such a killer album after such a long wait. As for non-metal, we’ve been enjoying the new Funker Vogt album, as well as ‘Ein Wintermärchen’ by Draumar (a long-time favourite of ours!).

18. Thank you very much for this interview! Last word traditionally belongs to you. Cheers!
Thank you for taking interest in our music. Cheers!

translation from Metal.it

CALADAN BROOD: EPIC BLACK METAL IN THE SPIRIT OF SUMMONING

Plunged out of nowhere like a bolt from the blue, the American duo of Caladan Brood is the author of a debut album of excellent quality, dedicated to an epic black metal in full Summoning style. "Echoes of Blood", released for the German Northern Silence Productions, is a small evil fantasy gem, perfect entertainment awaiting the new work of the Austrian combo. We at Metal.it took the first flight available to Salt Lake City and at the Utah Jazz Delta Center we met with Caladan Brood for a chat ...

Hi Caladan, first of all congratulations on your first album, we really appreciated it. First of all we know that it is based on a fantasy series called "The Malazan Book of the Fallen", in Italy badly translated "The fall of Malazan".
I candidly admit my ignorance about it: can you explain us its arguments and why did you choose it as the source for your music?
We based our music on Malazan for a number of reasons: firstly we used it as our thematic foundation because they are our favorite books and they provided us with a lot of inspiration for creating the style of music we chose. of working. The atmosphere and epic of the series is truly addicting and provides an excellent background for metal music. We knew from the start that we wanted to be a Malazan-themed band.
It is no mystery that your music is very close to that of Summoning, as your label candidly admits.
What do you think about it and in general about this style of metal?
Yes, obviously we love Summoning and their sound has been the main inspiration for our music. The description that our label wrote about Caladan Brood was all too generous, as obviously we do not pretend to declare ourselves better than the Austrian masters or anything like that, but our music is sincere and we have tried to add our own influences with the hope of arriving at something which is clearly taken from the Summoning picture, but which brings a personal approach to sound.
The cover you have chosen is really very attractive.
Albert Bierstadt's style gives a very 'mythical' feeling to the landscapes he interprets, and as a fantasy band we felt that this pairing was appropriate.
The CD is published by Northern Silence Productions, a German label: how did you get in touch with them? This type of "classic" metal is very strong in Europe, surely in the USA you have another type of metal, more modern and popstyle like metalcore, etc. What do you try to play such a "European" style from Salt Lake City, a city that we usually hear only for Mormons and Utah Jazz? Is there any scene in your city?
As for black metal and related genres, we have always gravitated towards European bands, and as such our music reflects these influences. And anyway yes, Utah has a very small but active scene with some phenomenal groups in many different genres.
Where did you record the album and how long did it take? Since there are only two of you, how did you go about composing and recording?
We recorded the album on the home computer, and then recorded the vocals in a friend's home studio. Usually we need a long period of time to fully complete the songs as we have to juggle writing and recording while dealing with work, school and all other everyday obligations. As for the composition of the music we simply meet, each of us with their own ideas on some piece, and we simply start the recordings. Once a song begins to take on its own identity, we arrange it and structure it into what will ultimately be the final product.
In our opinion, the best track is "Wild Autumn Wind", so "cinematic", great use of clean choirs and really hi-class melodies: wonderful.
Thanks, I'm happy to hear that you enjoyed.
Well guys, let's say hello: add what you want and congratulations again, this album is a little epic black metal jewel. Summonings must be alert ...
Thanks for the kind words. But we are also very pleased with Summoning's new album! And there is no doubt that it will be spectacular.