When the time came to name their seventh album, Dark Funeral’s thoughts went from music to movies. “The album has a very cinematic feel,” vocalist Andreas “Heljarmadr” Vingbäck tells Apple Music. “It’s painting a lot of pictures. So, me and [guitarist] Ahriman had a meeting. We already had the song ‘We Are the Apocalypse,’ and we felt it could be a pretty good movie title, regardless of genre even. So, we had the album title all along—we just didn’t know it yet.” But far be it from these Swedish black-metal veterans to dictate meaning. “We like that it’s kind of open. It could be ‘we’ in a concert setting or it could be ‘we’ as in humanity,” he offers. “You can put whatever you want into it, really.” Below, he comments on each track.
“Nightfall”
“The song is meant to invoke a Mesopotamian demoness called Lamashtu. I tried to paint the picture of this demoness being summoned and just devouring the whole world. She’s also the apocalypse in this instance. With lines like ‘Reap, oh great Death, with your fleshless womb,’ I was thinking more metaphorically, because she’s also known to snatch kids and poison breast milk. But if you’re also a goddess of death, you will not have flesh yourself, so you’re poisoning it for others.”
“Let the Devil In”
“This is an introvert song. You look into yourself and realize and accept what you are. Even if you don’t like it, you have to accept it—either to do something about it, or just go with it as an explanation to why you’re doing all the things you’re doing in life. So, it’s about accepting your inner devil and letting him in, but letting him out as well. To improve yourself as a person, you need to make sacrifices. Every target has a price.”
“When Our Vengeance Is Done”
“This is more of a classic Dark Funeral song. It’s about rage and hate and smashing up religious crap. Don’t believe the lies you are fed, you know? It’s a more simplistic hate song. Very anti-Christian.”
“Nosferatu”
“I had this idea that I wanted to see how the concept of Dracula has changed over time, so I went back and watched a bunch of the old films. The first one, Nosferatu, is from 1922. They couldn’t even call it Dracula because of copyright from the Stoker family, but that movie was so fucking dark. After that, I watched all kinds of vampire- and Dracula-themed movies, and nothing was remotely as dark. It’s a silent film, so I felt I had a unique opportunity to put words to it—which became this song.”
“When I’m Gone”
“This is the first song we completed for the album. Ahriman had been sending me some riffs, and I remember I woke up in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I write things down when I wake up like that because there’s some good shit in the subconscious sometimes. This song came from that. It’s based on a dream where you’re looking at yourself in a coffin and the emotional roller coaster of death takes place. It’s similar to ‘Unchain My Soul’ from the last album, I would say.”
“Beyond the Grave”
“This song describes the picture on the album cover, in a way. There’s this figure standing there, and the image is based in the same universe as our Where Shadows Forever Reign album and also Secrets of the Black Arts, if you will. You’re in this alternative universe or filmesque landscape and just describing what you see. This is so fucking abstract to talk about. I’m not writing lyrics about heartache and simple stuff.”
“A Beast to Praise”
“This is the serial-killer one. It’s kind of connected to ‘Let the Devil In’ in a way, but this is maybe a bit more sinister. It connects also to ‘Hail Murder,’ which is an older Dark Funeral song. It’s how you go inside yourself and you hear the Devil is calling and demanding. This is where you lose your self-control. If ‘Let the Devil In’ gives you the self-control and you take action yourself, this is when you fucking lose it and just go bananas.”
“Leviathan”
“When Ahriman sent this to me and I heard the acoustic intro, I knew it was a water song. Which is something completely new for Dark Funeral—there are no songs about water in the discography. The acoustic guitar was also a new element. When I started to feel the water in the music, I thought, ‘Who the fuck lives in this water, then?’ And, of course, it’s Leviathan. In that way, the song kind of told me what it was about.”
“We Are the Apocalypse”
“This is a biblical song about the seals and the Antichrist and the great beast. It’s basically like Revelations, the end of the world—the Apocalypse. Let’s take the worst shit in your Bible and use it against you. This is basically when you put all the taps on and leave the house and let it fucking drown.”