SOURCE – Your new album Tales: Of Humanity And Greed will be released on May 22nd, can you tell us about the creation process for the album as to how the recording of it went down?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – At first, we were not supposed to write and record a new album so “early” after “White Stained Inferno” came out in fall 2017. In early 2018 we got the opportunity to join a professional management/booking agency, which was finally the occasion to catch international tours and to push the band up at many levels. As “White Stained Inferno” was already released for months, we thought it would be clever to have some new material as soon as possible to get more tours and more professional opportunities.
I’ve had many songs ideas even before WSI was released, in fact I almost never stop writing! So, in Spring 2018 when we’ve sat, talked and listened demos about a new release, it became clear that we’ll hit the studio in less than one year for a new album. The creation process went very well and was classic: making pre-production at home, rehearse the songs with full-band, and fix all the details together.
The recording was quite normal as well (recording all the instruments separately), but it’s the second album we did with “El Mobo” so we knew better what to expect from him and how to best prepare the recording! It was a real pleasure to record this album, everything was great on all the levels, from setting-up gear to mastering.
SOURCE – What has the reaction been like to the new material you have released so far?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – Absolutely amazing. We were quite confident about it all because we all believe in the quality of this third album but, truth be told, you can never be sure about the people’s feedback. When the first singles were released from March to May, the reaction was already better than everything we released in the past: more comments, shares, likes… Same for the statistics on digital streaming platforms! But when the album came out last Friday the global reaction went so much higher! The public’s good reaction keeps going and the media reviews are overwhelming, we didn’t have any negative review so far!
SOURCE – Do you feel that Tales: Of Humanity And Greed is the most eclectic album that Temnein have ever made?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – Yes and despite the fact that it’s maybe our less “progressive” release. We wanted to push up the atmospheric side of WSI, we’re all fans of Post-Metal stuff so it was natural to turn into that direction and it gave to this recording a global mood that we’re very satisfied with. On this record you can hear many influences besides Melodeath and Post-Metal: Doom/Death, NWOAHM (the first wave of “Metalcore”), Shoegaze, Black Metal, and still some progressive elements!
We’re also think that the lyrical concept got a lot diversity on the different type of tales related: ancient Inuit myths, Asiatic tales for children, pop culture references, European stories from ancient centuries…
SOURCE – You’ve just released the video for album track I Am Davy Jones. Can you tell us a bit about the song, what it’s about and the video’s themes?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – This is probably the most emotional song of this album, both lyrically and musically. The first writing sessions for this song are very old, almost 4 years ago and I’ve had difficulties to finish a first version. In fall 2017 I’ve seen Anathema and Alcest in their European tour and it inspired me a lot for this song and soon after this gig, the song’s creative process was pushed forward and soon completed. The shoegaze elements and the global atmosphere is very inspired from those bands and once again, this is something we never did before and I’ve wanted to incorporate in our music, without losing our Melodeath roots. Ghost Brigade was also a pretty big influence for this one, especially on the intro.
The song’s lyrics are about the story of Davy Jones, a pirate who has been betrayed by his lover and has ripped off his heart to lock it deep down into the ocean. Many people know this character in Pirate of the Caribbean movies, but our singer choose to write about the more romantic metaphor of all the Davy Jones’s stories. He also dug into some personal feelings to write those lyrics.
The video was created by our bassist Julien, he did the first single’s video as well. It’s a silhouette animation video inspired by Belgian film director Michel Ocelot (well-known for the “Kirikou” movies), especially by his movie “Tales of the Night”. It depicts the song’s story with all its visual references to keep the listener’s attention. Julien did a fantastic work in a short amount of time because we weren’t supposed to do a second animated video by ourselves.
SOURCE – In what ways do you think that Tales: Of Humanity And Greed differs from your previous work and what ways is it in a similar vein?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – We wanted to keep our Melodeath roots heard since our first demo and increase the atmospheric side of WSI. To really push-up the atmospheres we’ve add for the first time some keyboards, synths, choirs and a few virtual instruments (for example the pipe in “Scums of Hamelin”). This is something I really wanted to add in our music for years and I’ve finally took the time to work on a MIDI keyboard and make it sound as best as possible.
This time there’s no clean vocals on the album, we tried some lines on a few songs, but it wasn’t working out.
I think the most radical change on this album is the song structures and our aim to have more homogenic songs. In the past we were most of the time scattering all our different influences in every song, and it didn’t work out all the time, especially on stage. It also lead us to songs that were much too long, and too repetitive. So we paid attention to this very seriously and we’re much more satisfied: “Rise of the Sontarans” is the shortest and the most easy listening song, Yuki Onna is the most heavy/doomy/atmospheric one, “I Am Davy Jones” the most luminous one, “Scums of Hamelin” sums-up all our progressive influences… Of course it didn’t prevent us to write songs that blend different influences (“Blind & the Greedy”, “The Knotted Bag”, “Dirge for Termina”) but this time I really think we did a better work in terms of coherence and the songs are globally more straight-forward and shorter.
SOURCE – How are you staying busy during this lockdown period, are you working on any new music?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – Well, we all have different professional situations due to this plague but for Morgan (Lead guitarist) and me: yes! I’ve took some of my free time to write many song ideas and to get back in the pre-production process at home, not only for Temnein but also for some others personal projects. Our singer also started to write lyrics again, so I guess we won’t wait a long time to work properly on new songs!
SOURCE – What have been some of the proudest moments of your time with Temnein so far?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – The first one is to have been able to record two albums in a very professional way with a producer that we like, both professionally and personally. Making “WSI” and “Tales…” will remain as a big achievement.
Then, we had many strong moments since we started to tour abroad! The shows we did in UK in February 2019 (London with Shade Empire and HRH Fest in Birmingham at the O2 Academy) were a big highlight because it’s the first time we had such a huge reaction from the crowd outside of France, especially in Birmingham where we played in a packed club a 4 PM, no one knew us before and we had so many amazing reactions, both during the show and after!
Finally, I think our biggest and proudest achievement were the shows we did with At the Gates in Russia in March 2019. ATG is one of biggest influences, we all love the band and we realized a dream on that tour! The shows went so well for us as we had once again a fantastic reaction from the crowd! At the Gates and their crew have been really kind to us, I really hope we’ll meet them again! I remember when Julien and I saw them at their reunion tour at Hellfest 2008, we would NEVER imagined that could happen for us ten years later.
SOURCE – You have had to cancel your live plans due to the ongoing COVID 19 pandemic. Have you had a chance to rearrange any live dates at the moment and where can fans find out any updates?
Florian Frandidier (Guitars) – There have been some touring plans that were in the works for this summer, it was not 100% confirmed and not announced but yes it’s not going to happen… It’s frustrating because those opportunities were good and for now we’re not sure that this will be reschedule later. In any case we’re working with our manager to go back on tour next year, we’re looking forward to catch another great tour! We’ll post updates on our social medias (FB, IG, TW) and on our website as well (www.temnein.net)! We can’t wait to be back on tour and to meet our fans! Until then, take care!
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