Imminence Are Set To Rock Good Things Festival

Hailing from the south coast of Sweden, the trailblazing alternative metalcore ensemble, Imminence, has boldly carved its niche in the musical realm over recent years. Defying all expectations, the quintet has meticulously crafted a sonic tapestry that transcends the boundaries of the genre. Their brave fusion of classical string arrangements interwoven with the raw power of ferocious Scandinavian metal creates a captivating auditory experience. In both sound and visuals, Imminence emerges as a beacon of innovation and excitement, establishing themselves not just as a band but as pioneers charting new territories in the ever-evolving musical landscape.

Fronted by vocalist and violinist Eddie Berg, guitarists Harald Barrett & Alex Arnoldsson, drummer Peter Hanström and bass player Christian Höijer; Imminence recently unleashed their musical prowess with their latest album The Black. Brace yourselves and take a deep breath as Imminence prepares us for the great plunge into the depths of The Black, an audacious promise of an unparalleled musical odyssey that defies convention and invites you to embark on the rise of a new genre classic. The Black is out now independently. Front man Eddie Berg talks to Hi Fi Way about playing in Australia at Good Things Festival for the first time.

It must be really exciting heading down to Australia for the very first time for Good Things festival?
Yeah, it sure is. We’re really excited about it.

Have you had a chance to have a look at the lineup and do you feel sort of really excited to be part of the bill?
One of the luxuries of being a European band is that we get to play so many festivals. We’ve probably played with every band on the bill already, on the same festivals.

Do you, festivals any differently compared to your own headline shows?
Yeah, you have to, if you’re playing anything from thirty minutes to sixty minutes, it only gives you so much time to build up the either the tension or the feeling or the flow of the show and that gets more difficult, the shorter the set is, I would say. I think that we tend to play the songs that we think people want to hear. So with the set time that we have for Australia for example, it is the first time we’re over there, we know we have a lot of fans waiting for us, so we hope that we can play most of the songs that people want to hear.

Coming to Australia for the first time have you been able to get some idea of how big your supporter base is here?
It’s always hard to say. I mean, you can read the comments or the emails that we would receive from fans asking us to come to Australia but that’s probably just a small portion of fans that are actually engaging in writing something, you never really know. That was the same thing for us when we went to the US for the first time. We had a feeling like, yeah, we have fans over there. We know that people are listening to our music over there, but it’s a completely different thing to play a show and having people actually showing up. So, it’s always really exciting to see, like heading into that unknown and see who our fans are and having them support us there.

Do you feel like the, the hard work starting to pay off now, particularly with your new album that’s just come out that’s starting to get you a lot more sort of attention around the world?
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been in this band for such a long time and we worked really hard at it. I do feel that there is a bigger payoff with our latest release, absolutely.

How do you think the Imminence sound between albums?
We’ve always strived to evolve our sound and create something that feels new and interesting for us with every release. What I think we did with “The Black” was doing a mixture of that, taking everything that we learned through writing the other albums and also going back to the start of writing a bit more heavier metal oriented music or songs. I feel like it’s kind of summing up the essence of what Imminence is musically, in a very cool way and having probably the first record that has ties to our debut album, which was a much more heavier and more aggressive record.

Does anything in particular drive or influence that?
I feel like when we do songwriting these days, we try to just approach it with a clear table, without definitions and just going in and trying to write music that we ourselves are excited about.

Was that a challenging album to make?
Actually it was the opposite in the writing process because of us going in with that open mind into the songwriting, and writing also from a place of joy. I think since we haven’t really written these type of tracks for a long time, that’s where Imminence came from the start. It was fun going back to our roots and write more metal oriented songs.

Did you know exactly how you wanted the album to sound at the beginning or does that take shape as you start working on it in the studio?
This is the first record we did in a different way. Typically, we would write an entire album or a collection of songs and choose which ones go on the album. This time around we actually started releasing and recording singles before the album was even done. We were just eager to get new music out there and as soon as we had one or two songs that we were really happy with, we would go to the studio, get them recorded and just release it. But what did feel cohesive from the beginning was that the first track that we wrote, which was Come Hell Or High Water, it had this feeling about it that felt darker and heavier. I felt that was the thing that put a stamp on the record and what you can feel throughout the whole record. So just sticking to that feeling while exploring how we can take that further and how we can dive deeper into that.

What was the energy like in the studio as you were finishing these songs?
We had quite a break from releasing or writing new music and we took a bit of time before we started writing again. I felt like we came in with such eagerness for writing new music and we were just really excited about how the songs were turning out and felt very confident that these are the tracks that are going to be on the upcoming album.

Has that set a blueprint for how you might do the next album?
Maybe! You never know. I can say that we actually started writing new music and we feel like we’re in such a good creative place at the moment. This time around we are much faster back on the ball again because we felt like sometimes when you are at the end of a writing process for an album, you can feel fatigued and feel like it’s getting harder to come up with the songs that you really love. This time around we felt the opposite. It was getting even more creative and more exciting as the album was unfolding. We had to stop because we had plans to go into the studio at this time and wanted the record to be finished around this time. So, we were forced to stop and we tried to get back on that writing horse as soon as possible again, it’s been really great.

Can you listen to the album like a fan would?
It’s hard to step out of because typically when you work on a song, you listen to it so many times and you make adjustments, it is really exciting when you hear the first mix from the actual recording because then you feel like the song gets a new life, but it’s still something that we have heard before. It’s hard to understand how a fan would perceive the record on a first listen, but for me I was still really excited to listen to it like front to back.

Is there anything particular you look forward to experiencing in Australia from what you have heard?
That’s the curse of being a tour musician. I think you don’t really have time to do sightseeing, it’s not like a vacation. It is though really exciting to have the opportunity that your music is taking you to new places in the world and to meet the fans that made that possible. That is always the most rewarding thing.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Imminence at Good Things Festival on the following dates, tickets HERE…