Natural Progression

Can you tell us a bit about the band? Who are you, and what do you play?

The band actually started out a looong time ago back in 2000 when my old band Autumn Leaves broke up. I always wanted to do a band in which I could have all my ideas come to life. In Autumn Leaves we were 4 people writing the music, so it was very hard to come up with a certain definable sound. So I started The Arcane Order as a project in 2000 and we were called Scavenger back then. We recorded a promo in 2004 and shortly thereafter signed with Metal Blade Records. We released 2 albums with them: “The Machinery of Oblivion” in 2006 and “In the Wake of Collisions” in 2008. After this our deal with Metal Blade ended, and we went on a longer hiatus. We released a new promo last year which secured us a deal with Massacre Records, and i September 2015 we released our 3rd album “Cult of None. We are currently Kasper Kirkegaard on rhythm guitar and backing vocals, Morten Løwe Sørensen, drums, and myself Flemming C. Lund on lead­ and rhythm guitar as well as composer of all music.

You recently announced the departure of Kasper Thomsen, your vocalist. What brought this about?

Well to be honest it didn’t come as that much of a shock to us, although we were really surprised that now was the time, considering the new album had just been released 14 days prior to him leaving. Kasper is an awesome guy and a great vocalist, but at the same time his engagement in the band, and his willingness to do live shows has always been… well, kinda sucky, to be honest. So I think that the fact that he just had a son ­ his first child ­and the fact that he felt he was holding us back with his lack of engagement really made the decision for him. We respect it but we are really sorry, because he really contributed to the sound that we have, plus we obviously all loved him as a metal brother.

What impact will his departure have on the band and the tour? Do you already have a replacement in mind?

Well first we kinda panicked, but we were extremely lucky. On our current live dates we have a session drummer from a Danish band called Blood Label. An extremely talented kid, by the way. And the singer from his band, Kenneth Klitte Jensen, was willing to step in with just a month’s notice. So we have played 4 shows together now, and I think it turned out really well. And Kenneth will be joining us on our upcoming live shows in February supporting Hatesphere as well. After this we will try to figure out what to do on the vocalist front.

Tell us a bit about your new album “Cult of none”

It was underway for 7 whole years! And to be honest more than once along the way I thought that making a new album was just not possible. There has been so many obstacles along the way, and the fact that we didn’t have a record label to push us really made things worse and slower. So I am extremely proud and glad that it finally did happen. The album contains more than 58 minutes of some sort of epic and part wise progressive extreme metal and was produced by Jacob Hansen (Aborted, Volbeat, Destruction and many other), who has produced everything we have released so far. Onb this new album we tried to evolve from the style we found on “In the Wake of Collisions”, but also wanted to have a few more slow songs this time. The reason is that we felt we needed a few slower songs to incorporate into our live sets. To be “Cult of None” is the best album we have done and it is the most focused of them all.

While preparing for this interview I also listened to your previous releases (In the Wake of Collisions,2008 and The Machinery of Oblivion, 2006). With “Cult of none” you have landed on a slightly different sound. Did you change something in your recording process?

I am actually quite surprised to hear you say that. You are the first one I have heard that felt we now have a slightly different sound. I think that between our debut and “In the Wake…” there is a significant change in sound, whereas I think “Cult of None” sounds like the natural successor to “In the Wake…”. One thing that IS different though is the production in which we have a much more dominant bass guitar this time around. Another thing that might be a bit different is that there is more black metal influence in the new songs, whereas “In the Wake…” had more of a Devin T/SYL kinda vibe going in many of the songs. But in general it seems that people think of the new album as a natural progression after “In the Wake…”.

Was i really the first to notice a difference? There is a different vibe on this album and for the better. The sound is… well more balanced. It’s a great album.

Aha! Well then I agree with you. We certainly do feel that this album is more balanced and that was what we were aiming at.

Well, mission accomplished! How has the reception of your new material been so far, and how well does it translate to the stage?

It’s been really good and we a extremely grateful. We were kind of anxious to see the reaction since it, as I mentioned, is a long time ago since we released something. And so much has been happening since our last release. And a whole new generation of metal listeners have come to the scene. And that means that for many young metal listeners they have not heard about us before. So in many way we kind of have to begin from scratch with the new album. So that part has been really exciting. But the new stuffs translates extremely well to the stage. Mainly because we have some slower songs on the new album, and they sounds really awesome live plus they are really fun to play.

On your bio you mention you did collaborations with a host of class acts including Raunchy, Invocator, Nightrage, Scarve, Hatesphere, Koldborn, Submission and Autumn Leaves. Can you tell us a bit about these collaborations?

Well, all of us in the band have been involved in a series of other bands. Currently Morten plays with the Swedish band Amaranthe and Kasper Kirkegaard plays with Hatesphere. I used to play with Invocator and Autumn Leaves, Kasper and Morten played together in Submission, Morten has played with Scarve, Hatesphere, Nightrage, Mercenary and others. I am currently touring guitarist for Raunchy and our now ex­singer Kasper used to sing in Raunchy.

Outside the bands mentioned above, what other bands would you consider influential to your musical style?

The influences have changed over the years. In the beginning I was a lot more influenced by Thrash Metal than on the following albums. So in the beginning there were bands like Darkane that influenced. Then later bands like Strapping Young Lad and Scarve. Scarve actually really helped shape the sound of The Arcane Order. To those of you who don’t know, Scarve is/was the band featuring Dirk and Sylvain from Soilwork. And lately it’s been bands like Decapitated, Dark Fortress, Ascension, Schammasch, Morbid Angel and Behemoth to mention some. I also listen to soundtracks to get inspired.

What will 2016 look like for The Arcane Order?

We are trying to play as many shows as possible to really get our name back out there again. I have really missed playing live shows! Morten will be touring a lot with Amaranthe and Kasper with Hatesphere, so we’ll have to really schedule everything as much as we can. But we really want to go out there and play in 2016! Other than that we have the big task of finding a new singer. Hopefully something good will come out of this, but I think it will be really hard to not disappoint some fans no matter what the solutions ends up being. Finally I want to start writing our next album NOW! I really don’t want to wait another 7 years before we can release something again, so I am hoping that I can have most of the new record done by the end of 2016. A bit optimistic perhaps, but there is nothing wrong in at least trying. Finally we might have to look for a new label again. Our contract was for just 1 album with options for 2 more and we do not know yet, whether Massacre Records want to take this option.

Any last words for our readers?

I hope that everyone who are not familiar with us will give us a chance and check us out if you are into either Thrash, Death, Black or just Extreme Metal altogether. Come by either thearcaneorder.net or facebook.com/thearcaneorder and listen to our songs and check us out. Thanks for doing the interview, guys!

Thank you for taking the time to talk to us!