Noctum's debut album entitled "The Seance" took a lot of people by surprise. No trace of Death Metal, no wimpy Stoner Rock or boring Drone Doom - you can't get much more old school Doom Metal than those four youngsters from up North! The ever-growing catalogue of High Roller Records has seen many outstanding releases in the recent past but the new band from Uppsala is up there with the very best. Bassist Tobias Rosén takes these words as a compliment: "Thanks a lot for those kind words. We're really happy about the sales and promotion that we've received with 'The Seance'. Everything turned out great. The reactions from fans and press were mind-blowing, really. Couldn't ask for more!"
It's no wonder then that the band was highly motivated to put out some new product as soon as possible. "The Fiddler" is the name of the brand new three track 12" EP on High Roller. So does "The Fiddler" carry on where "The Seance" has left off or have there been musical changes at all? Tobias replies: "We're constantly growing both as individuals and as a group, and I think we've put more thoughts into the songs this time and it's still just a small taste of what is to come!"
"The Fiddler" and "The Serpent Bride" are the two new Noctum compositions on the EP explains Tobias: "'The Serpent Bride' is a pretty 'old song' that we've been playing at almost every show.
'The Fiddler' is about a Swedish water spirit called 'N?cken', great tales have been told over the decades and I made my own version of it in the lyrics, and when David came up with the 'vocal+guitar melody-break', it totally hit the spot!" The third track completing the 12" EP is the Pentagram cover of "Lazy Lady": "We've covered several Pentagram songs and this was the best one, basically I'm only listening to the 70's collections of Pentagram but I love the later stuff as well, haven't heard 'The Last Rites' yet."
Once again, as with "The Seance", the cover artwork of "The Fiddler" is very striking, dark and atmospheric. This is how it came about: "I told the group that I wanted a fiddler on the cover and then we discussed it in the group and wrote down exactly how we wanted it and our dear friend Linn Johansson took our notes and made a fantastic job once again."
Noctum have already written a couple of brand new songs for the upcoming longplay album. Live they have played at the Blue Soul festival in Germany and Muskelrock in Sweden. Yet they are still waiting for offers from Keep It True and the one and only Headbangers Open Air.
Due to some strange developments Metal Blade have snapped up the cream of the new Swedish Metal elite (Portrait and In Solitude) plus oldtimers Pentagram. So it seems as if Brian Slagel goes back to his roots. Gone seem the days of generic Metalcore or third-rate Death Metal. Does Noctum think that they too will be signed by a big label anytime soon? Tobias talks in mysterious ways: "We have a great suprise in the pipeline, it will be revealed within the next days! Stay tuned."
