Kvitrafn (Einar Selvik) – Wardruna

Interview by Alessandra Cognetta

When I was asked if I wanted to interview Einar “Kvitrafn” Selvik from Wardruna I had to stop for a good five minutes to register the news. If you don’t know about Wardruna, you should immediately make up for that, for your own good. Wardruna is an ensemble of Norwegian musicians that combines runes, old and historical instruments, sounds produced by nature and a significant amount of talent to produce some of the most intense, primitive, magical (I could go on forever and I still wouldn’t be able to describe it accurately) pieces of music you will ever hear. Kvitrafn is one of the main pillars of this extraordinary gathering of artists, delivering lyrics, vocals and instrumental performances since the first album of the “Runaljod” trilogy of albums, which is still in progress. Their second work, “Yggdrasil”, has been released at the end of March and we took the chance to uncover some of the mysteries of their music. Read below for a nice conversation about music, shamanism, vikings, stereotypes and… well, just scroll down and see for yourself!

Hugo Flores & Jessica Lehto – Factory of Dreams

Interview by Ed MacLaren

Portugal’s Factory of Dreams is not a band to rest on its laurels. After releasing three consecutive prog-metal classics, producer/multi-instrumentalist Hugo Flores and vocalist Jessica Lehto may have surpassed them all with the sublime and sonic grandeur of “Some Kind of Poetic Destruction”. An epic concept album of the highest caliber, “Some Kind of Poetic Destruction” weaves effortlessly between soaring melodies and savage riffs, tearing at the fabric of its musical universe with searing solos and breathtaking vocals. Hugo and Jessica took some time to talk to Femme Metal Webzine about the remarkable concept and development of “Some Kind of Poetic Destruction”, how to out-epic an epic album and the strange and fascinating impact of lip piercings.

Jessica: I’m thrilled that you think so! Hugo has written such excellent music for this album. Of course that goes for all albums, but this is my favourite release so far. Every single track on “Some Kind of Poetic Destruction” has that special something, a nice atmosphere, lovely instrumentation and an interesting story to tell. Continue reading »

Jennifer Borg – Divine Ascension

Interview by Miriam C.

“As The Truth Appears” marked, in 2011, the debut of this Melbourne-based progressive metal band, even if some time is passed (precisely 2 years) it was nice to know more about this band and the debut’s reaction from the press. Seems also that the band recently undergone into a line up change (Jason Meracis is now the new bass player) and they are prepping up for the album #2. In the meantime, enjoy this interview….

Today Femme Metal introduces you Divine Ascension from Australia. Let’s welcome Jennifer Borg, the lead singer of the band

Thanks, I appreciate the opportunity.

The band now known as Divine Ascension was semi formed and looking for a lead vocalist, and I was looking for something interesting and challenging to keep me on my toes. As soon as I heard one of the instrumental demos “Garden on Evil”, I knew that this was the right project for me. A whole new world of ‘underground’ music known as melodic metal opened up to me, and Robb and Luke commenced my education feeding me with Metal music from all over the world. Once we established our line up, we did our first gig in Melbourne in November 2007 and have kept moving forward ever since. Continue reading »

Shiori Vitus – Eleanor

Interview by Alessandra Cognetta

Here we are for another feature from overseas in our series of interviews with female-fronted Japanese bands. This time we move from Tokyo to the south of the country, specifically Osaka. Shiori is the lead singer of Eleanor, a gothic/melancholic metal band that will surely remind you of the Dutch act The Gathering. But there’s much more than that in their music and we had Shiori as our guide to get to know more about Eleanor and their latest release, “Breathe Life Into The Essence”, with in-depth analysis of the songs, the emotions the cultural influences and the people behind the music. You only have to scroll down and read!

Hello. I’m the singer of Eleanor, Shiori. Thank you for the opportunity, and I would like to express my feelings of honor at being interviewed. As for the new album, we have been introduced by magazine reviews, radio programs etc., and through various sources of media we have been receiving favorable receptions from not only our fans, but also listeners who have never heard of us before, and I feel very happy about this. It could be due to the fact that before the release we posted free test plays from the album, and made the PV accessible, so that as many people as possible would have the chance to know a little bit about us.

The making of the second album began from the act of first putting a stop to the currentof our activities, and taking a second look into ourselves. The songs on the second album I think have increased in scale, compared to before. We do call ourselves a melancholic gothic metal band, but many songs take a widely altered course from what would be expected from the gothic metal genre. If we had not stopped the flow after the release of the first, we most possibly might have ended up making an album on the same track as before. Continue reading »

Silje Leirvik

Interview by Robert Brady

In a country that is notorious for its biggest musical export being Black Metal, Norway has also been building a great legacy of producing some of the top female vocalists, artists and musicians in the world. In modern time in the heavy metal and hard rock community, Norway has produced Liv Kristine ex-Theatre of Tragedy and current frontwoman of her own band Leaves Eyes, probably one of the most beautiful and undisputed powerful operatic vocalist in ex- Tristania soprano Vibeke Stene, Carmen Elise Espenæs of Midnattsol and on the pop side Marion Raven.