LIVE COVER IN ACTION STORY
SWEDEN ’ s AMARANTHE RELEASE THEIR LANDMARK , CAREER-DEFINING RECORD “ MANIFEST ” AND FACE THE GLOBAL CRISIS HEAD-ON !
Stuck in Denmark for months , away from family and friends , Sweden ’ s hottest band Amaranthe starts from scratch after coming off a huge tour with Sabaton . Elize Ryd and the rest of the band go back to re-writes and adding a bigger sound and stronger punch to the songs . The result “ Manifest ” the bands ’ career-defining record which sees them going back to their symphonic metal / metalcore root . Lead Vocalist Elize Ryd spends an-hour with RTFX talking about everything from performing , the pandemic , to podcasts .
Pictured above : Johan while filming the video for “ Archangel ”
Amaranthe has always written positive songs but this record , as a whole , has just a little bit of added angst in it . This record has a bigger sound than its predecessors , why ?
ELIZE : We were very inspired after coming back from the tour with Sabaton . Obviously , we hear very big sounds every night . We we listened to the demos we did before going on the tour and we realize they didn ’ t have enough power to them . So the tour was actually very inspiring .
So you had this album already in the works while you were on tour with Sabaton ?
ELIZE : Yes , We had like 30 ideas and 10 finished songs before we went on tour . When we got home we decided what songs we wanted to work on and what songs were finished . When we listened to them again , I felt like I wasn ’ t connected to them anymore . I was actually waking up in the middle of the night with new songs in my mind . I brought the idea to Olof and he began building the arrangement and after 4 days we had four new songs . We usually start our creative process after 12 at night . LOL After 3 weeks , we wound up with 8 or 9 completely new tracks . And all of them ended up on the album .
What was it like putting the record together in a Covid-19 era ?
ELIZE : It was an odd situation . I think it gives us an extra push to do even better . When you realize you can ’ t take things for granted . It gave us extra energy .
Continued on next spread .
Photo Credits : Johan Carlen ( Opening spread )