Doom metal trio Godthrymm celebrated the release of their debut album Reflections last month. Formed of ex-members of My Dying Bride, Anathema and more, the individuals that make up Godthrymm have joined forces and set solid foundations for their exciting new project. We sat down with the band to delve deeper and find out more about their debut album.
The album title Reflections was chosen as the music references my past body of work and the old influences of past, whilst creating something new and passionate, whilst some of the lyrics reflect some more personal and introspective themes. The album is a true representation of us as musicians and our inspiration.
Monsters Lurk Herein is an exploration into how words are signposts towards true feelings, and how words themselves cannot be an absolute truth without understanding. Texts simply point us in a direction towards the author’s intention. Musically it manages to cover most of our history stylistically, and it has the added personal touch of additional vocals from my wife Catherine.
Among The Exalted is desire as obsession. An all-encompassing need for love and comfort that distorts and controls an individual. This song is one of the oldest songs in our repertoire, and has gone through the most changes. It pays homage to the old death doom scene of the early nineties and we’re certainly not afraid to proudly display our influences!
The Sea As My Grave paints a picture of a broken, tired human giving up their earthly remains to the sea for an eternal rest in the vastness of the oceans. I personally think that this song sums up the whole style and sound of Godthrymm perfectly, and it also contains the vocal performance I’m most proud of.
We Are The Dead is simply someone looking over their life and work as they realise their best actions are only fleeting moments, snapshots, and insignificant against the backdrop of history – time is so short that they are already the walking dead. This song has been played in every version of the band lineups, and I completely fell in love with it again on the album version, with the additional harmony guitar lines giving a slightly darker tone than before. A big, solid, melodic, and very direct song. I can see how people connect to it quite quickly.
The Light Of You is ruminating over a series of episodes in a life full of love yet regret, passion but heartache – life encompasses a full myriad of extremes in emotion, to result in true understanding an enlightenment. Huge crushing riffs, mournful melodic guitar leads, pounding drums and an agonised vocal make this a very dense song musically.
The Grand Reclamation tells the tale of Mother Earth as a sentient being rising up to rid herself of the plague of human life. The song had featured on our debut EP but I felt the need to record a “definitive” version, as the song deserves it. This was the song that redefined Godthrymm as a serious consideration rather than just some old friends enjoying playing some old music. This was the first song I had sung lead vocals on, and then kick started everything that had happened since.
Cursed Are The Many lyrically continues on the same theme as We Are The Dead, but highlighting the need for kinship in a world of opposition. It’s a proper punishing doom song, but with a beautiful outdo section that leads up out of the darkness.
Chasmic Sorrows is an instrumental track that looks to convey a connection to feelings more so than words can hope to say. This was the last thing written for the album, and it was wonderful having the opportunity to create a wall of guitars in an almost orchestrated fashion. This is pure sorrow interpreted in music.
Godthrymm‘s debut album Reflections is out now via Profound Lore, available to purchase HERE.
