Wormwood just released their new album "Nattarvet" and to celebrate we asked Tobias Rydsheim to tell us about the song "The Isolationist." Here is the story:
The winters in Sweden is long, dark, cold, bleak and harsh.
Simply a perfect climate to exacerbate the angst that comes with the endless darkness.
Well, it isn't too bad nowadays compared to how our ancestors had to fight for survival - during the whole year around. For the modern swede winters can still be challenging in many ways, but back in the days it was a matter of life and death.
You don't have to dig deep down in history to find these people, and take part of how they lived. I am talking about the mid-late 1800's, just around 150 years back in time.
And perhaps you've heard about the mass-emigration from Scandinavia to the USA. Sweden amongst our fellow Nordic countries was starving. A few years of crop failures due to extremely cold and long winters, followed by both abnormal hot and wet summers made conditions in the Swedish countryside terrible for many years to come.
The famine was a fact.
A lot of the stories from that era of time is well documented. But most of the sources are focused on the emigrants. What about the ones that stayed? The poor but proud ones that kept on fighting the incredible bad conditions. The ones that had no choice except - life or death. Our forefathers that somehow managed to outlive the famine. What about them?
These people are in a sense celebrated on our new album "Nattarvet" (Night's heritage). The first single from the album is called "The Isolationist", The year is 1867, it's a year of solitude and isolation and a man who refuses to leave his home, he is very sick and starving. the wife dies, yet there he remains and withers away into obscurity.
Metal music use to discuss the dark side of life in general. But this, this was for real and it makes it even darker, but still beautiful and harmonic.
There is an expression , "The Nordic/Swedish melancholy", it is as you may guess something melancholic, but yet so beautiful. Like an ancestral memory in the body that vibrates every time these kind of stories are getting told.
"The Isolationist" is pure Swedish melancholy. Something real, long, dark, cold, bleak and harsh. Yet so beautiful and harmonic - just like 1867
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!
Singled Out: Wormwood's The Gentle Touch of Humanity
Singled Out: Wormwood's The Isolationist
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