RIMFROST come from the frozen land of Sweden, they deliver a cold and blizzard Black/Death Metal that is the vein of Megiddo melted with Immortal. Yet, their first MCD was a great piece of extreme Metal, but this band really got me with their "A Forest World Unknown" album. Even though this band is rather young and their members are only 20 years old, RIMFROST's
come with a mature Metal, so let's discover a bit this Swedish combo. Most answers were given by all members as a single voice, while Throllv, Hravn, Beuwolf needed to add private comments. Note how views of these new B.M bands are drastically different from what early B.M combos such as Burzum or Mayhem had in the early '90's
Hail to Thy, what records will you pick while answering this interview ?
Zyklon B, Mayhem "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas", DarkThrone "Sardonic Wrath" and King Diamond "Them".

First of all, let's introduce your band to Franang zine. Your first connection to a large audience was through the "A Journey To A Greater End" MCD that yet established your musical direction, is that right ?
RIMFROST plays Black Metal with influences from Thrash and Death Metal. We are all young musicians, born 1987, and we started the band when we were 15 years old. Yes, we think it's great to have released our first EP when we were 17-18 years old. And we really hope that we'll get more interest from people all over the world.

Where does the band name come from and what does it mean exactly ? I found on the web that it means "Hoar Frost" in English, is that right ? Thence how is your connection with cold temperature and winter excepted that you live in Sweden ?
RIMFROST is a Swedish word for “hoar frost”. So your search on the web is correct. We have always been fascinated by the cold beautiful winter here in Sweden. We are always walking in the woods, especially when it's winter and very cold. Because it is then we don't see any fucking humans around ! And also the nature is a big influence to our music.

"A Journey To A Great End" was the first official production released through No Colours Records. It's about excellent blackened Death/Black Metal in the vein of "Blizzard Beast" from Immortal. You success in recording something both technical and straight in the head, but how important is the mentioned Immortal album to you ? And was it a long process to play in this vein ?
Of course it's an honour that our music reminds people of Immortal, because they are excellent musicians ! When we first started to play this extreme our goal was to sound just like Immortal. But now we feel like to create our own style. It was a long process to succeed playing that extreme. We have rehearsed very much and our songs took time to write. It isn't the kind of songs you put together in a day.

What is your journey to a greater end to you ? Is that a journey through endless pain caused by frost and blizzard, or is that a travel in the inner soul of human ? Would you explain the meaning of the cover : that statue with the pentagram on her/his back, and the light red colour ?
Hravn: Life is a journey and the end is death. What if there is a life after death without pain, sorrow and misery ? Wouldn't that be a greater life to live ? A greater end ? I don't mean that the real life is nothing but shit because I love my life and I enjoy living it ! But I'm not afraid of death. Nobody should be that. It's a path we all have to walk.
The statue is an angel frozen in stone, all the actions we do in life suddenly disappears and goes forgotten in eternity. The red colour can symbolize the blood humans spill under the life, even death. The brushy forest symbolizes the rough and painful ways we have to take in life even though we don't want to. The pentagram is the sign of evil, the real force ruling this sick world.

This year you recorded your first full-length "A Frozen World Unknown" through No Colours Records, how was the recording process and wasn't it too difficult to write new materials for a full-length only one year after releasing the MCD ?
We were in the studio for six days. So we work fast ! We always record vocals last so we actually wrote lyrics to the new three songs in the studio ! Our producer Jonas Kjellgren (Scar Symmetry) is a really good producer and he knows how we want everything to sound. We wrote the three new songs during this year and then we re-recorded two songs from the MCD. “Hordes Of Rime” and “Ride The Storm” was done just a few weeks before we entered the studio.

When it comes to that new album, I noticed that you re-recorded "At The Mighty Halls They'll Walk" and "A Frozen World Unknown" from the previous MCD, why did you choose to use these songs again in studio and why didn't you come with only fresh materials for the debut CD ?
We think those two songs are so strong ! And we always said that our debut album title is gonna have to be "A Frozen World Unknown", that's why we took that song.

I'd describe the full-length as a mix between Megiddo for the vocals parts and "Blizzard beast" again for the way of arranging tunes and even Hades for the technical guitars. The vocals sound nocturnal and merciless. Would you agree with that way of describing your materials ?
Yes ! It's a really good description. It is really good to hear that someone can put his finger so correct on our music ! We want people to hear that we play extreme and technical in the same time.

How was the feed back to that new record ? Did you receive any strange reactions and what were you expecting from reviews ?
The feedback is good so far. We have got some mails from Americans, Germans and Belgians and they absolutely like what we have created. Actually we have expected good reactions from the reviews.

Once again the cover is pretty symbolic : purple colour with an high snowing mountain and a raven at the background yet announced the aim and the musical range of RIMFROST, isn't it ?
Our goal with the front cover is to create this right feeling, the booklet and the pictures in it can do really much. The feeling we want to give the listener is deserted and no humans around as far as the eye can see. A fantasy world we want to live in, without any humans. Just to live out our lives in this peaceful place of ours ! Any man who here rests his foot falls!!!
I'd like to you speak about the lyrics in detail, where does your inspiration come from ? Obviously I know that you're dealing with darkness, winter and anger but are there specific books, movies or private experiences used in your lyrics ? Does the second album title refer to "Valkyrias", and dead Vikings ?
Hravn : I use to walk around alone very much and then I think of things that really make me pissed off, but also about deep subjects like death. I guess you could call me a life philosopher. I use fantasy but also private experiences in my lyrics. Actually the lyrics to "At the Mighty Halls They'll Walk" is dedicated to a close relative who past away a while ago. I really think that lyric is something special and it's my way to honour him ! I can reveal that the next album will have some Viking theme in it.
Beuwolf: When I write lyrics I like to get in the right mood first. I imagine that I stand alone watching the dark and cold land of RIMFROST. Then I can write really good. I'm really fascinated by occult forces and evil. It's an honour to be the first bass player in RIMFROST to write lyrics with Hravn. I think he likes the way I think and when we write together we accomplish to create what we are looking for!

I noticed that many B.M bands deal with winter, nature and cold forest but the fact is that very few members really hang in forest and most of them hardly want to walk for hours in nature, which is rather stupid when you're preaching such topics in your lyrics. What about you ?
We have always walked in the forest. It was the only thing we did before we got a rehearsal place. It was the highlight of the day, to walk and talk about the band and set up goals for ourselves. Yes, we think it's stupid when bands are singing about something they can't really stand up for.

Let's keep on this topic, do you think that Mother Nature may exist in this world ? I mean do you believe that elements have a common force lead by any primal
energy ?
Throllv: Maybe, the world is strange you know.
Hravn: But I rather see it this way; we humans treat the nature like shit and someday we truly have to pay the price !
Beuwolf: Yes, I do believe on these elements. The forces of nature are greater than the human. We can't really imagine how strong these forces are.


Many Black Metal combos deal with Satanism, I'd like to know your views on that matter ? Do you think that Satan/Lucifer may exist ? How is your view of religions ?
We don't believe in anything called religion ! Humans are a weak creature following a fucking book full of bullshit. And the really crazy shit is that we kill each other because we can't agree which one of our fantasy gods who is the right. We don't want anything to do with that shit. We do believe in different forces in this world, light and dark. The dark and evil is the ruling force in this world.

Back in the 60's there was a strong Satanic revival through Anton Lavey, Charles Manson and so on. There was lot of activities around the occult theories and even well known bands such as Led Zeppelin, Beatles, or Rolling Stones used the Satanic elements in their lyrics. Have you even taken care of that and are you into early bands such as Coven, Led Zeppelin ?
Of course we listen to Led Zeppelin but we wouldn't say that we are into the things they did back then on the 60`s.

The Satanist ideas' from the 60's were a kind of rebellion against the established government and rules, against the Hippy trend, and Flower Power ideology. They wanted to break all the rules, and it was more a kind of "do what you will" than anything else. Is your philosophy too ?
Yeah, in a certain way. Fuck the hippies and their fucking drugs, we all know that all the wars in this world will never end either way. We do think this way; "do what you feel and protect what is yours in this life".

The 90's Scandinavian Black Metal scene turns the dark ideologies toward something much more extreme, it wasn't about self-accomplishment anymore but about fighting against Christianity. Obviously Lavey doctrines and Satanic Bible were always mentioned in interviews as influences. Where you active during these years and what is your regard now on the 90's B.M era and early bands such as Beherit, Archgoat or Impaled Nazarene, Profanatica who really came with a strong images ?
We were not active these years, we are all born in 1987. But you can truly hear that we are inspired of the 90`s Black Metal in our music. Many of the Norwegian bands has developed very much since the 90`s like Emperor, Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir. It's nothing wrong with that, to dare and try to create something else, but we like that DarkThrone pretty much go in the same direction as they did ten years ago. True. We are not so familiar with those bands you mention (yuh ??? fuck you should really get their records if you're into extreme Metal-ed).

I'd like to know if you've any interest in early let's say dark bands such as Piledriver, Exorcist, Stormwitch, Running Wild that were all dealing with the occult topics in Heavy Metal ? Is there any favourite band of you in that range of Metal ?
We always loved Wasp and King Diamond !

Ok, let's get back to your band, what are the future plans with RIMFROST and is there any hope you see you playing live in France ?
First of all our goal is to get a big and true audience to our music. Of course our dream is that we can live on what we do with RIMFROST, the band is actually our lives and the only thing we want to do. We'll quit when we either die or grow weak because of age. We don't know when we can visit France right now but we do know that when we get there we're gonna give you a fucking concert you'll never forget ! That we can promise. We are discussing live gigs with No Colours right now so we'll maybe begin with Germany first. But we will visit France and we are truly looking forward to it !

Let's close that chapter here, end the interview by giving your views on France and the Metal scene here. How do you see us from your land ?
Throllv: The feeling I got is that Metal has never really been an accepted form of music in France, or maybe it is more Black Metal who hasn't been accepted (fuck does it mean that Metal has to be accepted by normal and common dickheads to be represented on a shitty Eurovision ? Fuck that, Metal is for Metalheads period !ed) .
Hravn: But you guys have really good and big record labels and zines/magazines in France ! France is a really nice country and I'm looking forward to visit you and give you some gigs!
Beuwolf: The feeling I got is that you have really good and technical Metal in France.

Franang zine 27/12/06