by Alexandra Mrozowska
— Senior Columnist —
One of the most fascinating things about music journalism is a multitude of types of people you come across while crafting one story after another. There will be interviewees guiding you – almost by the hand – through the maze of their art, providing you with an exact account of whatever contributed to it. Such artists will reveal a lot about themselves in the process, in quite a sensationalized manner sometimes, and leave little if anything to your imagination. But there will be also those who want us listeners to guess and analyze on their own – and perhaps, by having kept things ambiguous, to add our own little twists to the story behind the album or a song. And that’s what Nils Molin of Dynazty (and Amaranthe) aimed for while talking with Hardrock Haven’s Senior Columnist Alexandra Mrozowska about the band’s new album Final Advent, out August the 26th via AFM Records. But, truth be told, a little bit of ambiguity to what already is one of the most complex albums of the year makes it even more worthwhile to delve into it…
Hardrock Haven: So, let’s start from the most obvious thing about the new Dynazty album Final Advent – and that is the meaning behind the album title, which brings to mind both a possible reference to the Latin word ‘adventus’ as well as even some religious connotations – specifically, some Christian connotations…
Nils Molin: Right. Well, an ‘advent’ is the arrival of something. And I think the title is meant to be a little bit ambiguous (laughs). So I wouldn’t wanna give too much away, but the ‘final advent’ is the final arrival of something. Also, we released one of the tracks of the album [prior to the album release] which is called “Advent,” and we released that as the first single, so that was like the announcement of the arrival of something. And then, ‘final advent’ is the arrival of the final, of the whole album itself. And the song “Advent” is also about self-realization, self-growth, self-fulfillment and trying to reach your highest potential and always striving to one up yourself… and reaching the final version of yourself.
Hardrock Haven: With a song called “Power of Will” opening the album and another called “Power of Now” ending it, it’s almost as if the album turns full circle. Is this loop entirely accidental and if not, what kind of role does it play?
Nils Molin: I mean, it’s quite accidental actually, because “Power of Will” was one of the very first songs that we wrote for the album. And it just so happens to be that “Power of Now” was the final song that we wrote for the album. So, when we had the first instrumental idea for the “Power of Now,” I just felt that the song itself was very reminiscent of “Power of Will” in many ways, and that’s when I decided that this one song should be the first song on the album, [that] one should close it and they should have similar titles and sort of similar themes. But with the whole full circle thing, I don’t think it’s something we’ve arrived at when we wrote that final song for the album, which was to be “Power of Now.”
Hardrock Haven: Do you think that when it comes to your last two or three albums, even things like song order have their meaning on the album, or are they more of meaningless details?
Nils Molin: I think it’s always supposed to have a meaning. [It] depends on what kind of audience is listening to the album, but when you have the traditional hard rock and heavy metal audience, a lot of people are still gonna sit down and listen to the whole thing from start to finish. So, when you construct the order of songs on the album, you should always keep that in mind – and I think it’s important to have a good and natural flow to the album. For example, putting “Power of Will” and “Power of Now” after one another on the album wouldn’t make any sense dynamically, really. You just wanna separate those two, like we did on this album, having one as the first song and the other as the final song on it.
Hardrock Haven: Final Advent seems to deal with pretty similar themes as the previous Dynazty album The Dark Delight did – as you’ve mentioned, the self-growth, temptation, sin and redemption as well as the importance of making the right choices in life. As those connotations are basis of almost every philosophy and religion, is there any particular philosophical or religious system that inspired the lyrical content of the album?
Nils Molin: No – short answer. No, it might’ve just happened to be that my head is revolving around the same kind of themes, I guess, as many of these (laughs). I think that’s just something that… well, when I hear the music that we write, it just comes naturally to me to write about the human themes. So I try not to think about it too much – I just try to find something that synchronizes with the musicality within the songs and something that amplifies the motif and emotional core of the song. And sometimes, that can make me venture into this kind of philosophic territories, if you like. But there’s no real bigger plan than me trying to find something than can exemplify the music of the band and of the particular album in question in a lyrical way.
Hardrock Haven: And speaking about those human themes used on the albums – throughout the years, the band went from stories of indulgence and hedonism, like “Sultans of Sin” for example, towards more mature and indeed philosophical view on things. Do you think it kind of reflects your personal lives in terms of personal growth and maturity, or perhaps also reflects the current tendencies in rock and metal which is not as hedonistic as it used to be before?
Nils Molin: Back in those days we were sort of collaboratively writing the lyrics for those very early albums, so there was no clear direction. Now, I think the band has really found its voice, musically and lyrically. And sure, you could call it self-maturity or self-growth, but I think it’s for the fact that we started finding a more distinctive identity within the band musically. And I sort of took over writing all the lyrics myself and then I sort of found the identity for myself for the band as well that fit the music better and fit where the band was in those later days rather in the very early ones… We had a very different musical landscape back then and different ideas, so I think it’s just changed naturally and organically.
Hardrock Haven: Also, certain musical vibes as well as even portions of song lyrics refer to the previous Dynazty album [Nils nods]. Would you say that Final Advent as a whole is therefore a continuation of The Dark Delight?
Nils Molin: Well, I like to see it that way. I think that any kind of musical journey that you make will always be affected by the steps that you took before and what you did before. And we were very happy with the way that The Dark Delight turned out and we wanted to continue working on that and developing that. So I think that, in many ways, it’s a musical sequel or a continuation to that album that actually goes as far as the lyrics go as well. I mean, there’s a song on Final Advent called “All the Devils Are Here,” which to me thematically as well as musically and lyrically was very similar to the song on The Dark Delight called “Heartless Madness.” So I sort of consciously wrote something that was very similar or could even be considered a continuation of that lyrically. And then there’s the song called “The White,” which is the third song of the musical trilogy that we started two albums back with the song called “The Grey” [Firesign] and continued with the song called “The Black” [The Dark Delight] and now there’s “The White” on Final Advent. And like you said (laughs), I’m also referencing the [previous] album title itself – The Dark Delight – in the chorus of “Instinct.”
Hardrock Haven: That’s right.
Nils Molin: Yeah. So I think – if not anything else – it’s just good fun referencing what you’ve done before.
Hardrock Haven: Right, and probably for the fans too – finding all those references…
Nils Molin: Sure!
Hardrock Haven: And as you’ve just mentioned the trilogy of “The Grey,” “The Black” and “The White” – how would you describe the idea behind this trilogy and do you think they also function separately as well as the kind of a musical entity they eventually formed together?
Nils Molin: Well, the story behind the whole thing is that when we wrote the first song of the three – “The Grey” for the Firesign album – it was never intended to be a trilogy of songs. We just wrote a song that turned into “The Grey” and that whole trilogy kind of thing popped into my head when we were writing the second song, “The Black,” for The Dark Delight album. And it just started with a musical idea that I thought was very reminiscent of “The Grey.” And that’s when I sort of came up with the idea that we can do a song called “The Black” since we were singing about grey, black and white (laughs) and different shapes of personalities. So it wasn’t until we wrote the second song that I sort of started thinking about it in terms of, “Hey, we should do all three and on the next album, there should be a song called “The White.” And I guess that whole thing comes full circle on this album as well and I definitely think they function as individual songs as well. There are overall some musical themes that run through three of the songs, but they can for sure stand as individual tracks as well.
Hardrock Haven: Songs like “Heart of Darkness” and “Achilles’ Heel” certainly make a good use of literary phrases and figures and may or may not have some literary connotations. So in general, do you as a songwriter happen to find some inspiration in literature or, let’s say, things like movies – or are your songs based mostly on your life and your observations of what happens to you and people around you?
Nils Molin: It’s a little bit of everything. Sometimes I write a little bit from my own experience, my own life – maybe what goes around me, what happens to the world of the people close to me or whatever… But I also write out of a purely fictional standpoint sometimes, just making a short story that would fit into a song and trying to find the theme that, like I said before, just gels with the musicality within the song itself and makes the song stronger. And sometimes it’s just trying to find any kind of theme or any kind of story. But also, like you said, sometimes I’m just inspired [with] literature, movies, TV series… whatever. There is no great plan – I’m just trying to find something that flows out of me organically.
Hardrock Haven: And as we’ve already mentioned, while the previous Dynazty album The Dark Delight revolved around some pretty universal themes, it also did refer to the present day society a lot in songs like Apex. Are there any references to the modern day problems like that on the new album?
Nils Molin: Not necessarily as much as on the previous one. I think when we were writing this album, the world had enough problems going on at the time [laughs]. So I’ve tried mostly just to write a few songs that were mostly upbeat and positive, like “Power of Will” or “Power of Now.” These songs were kind of reflecting the times and what I would want to present to the world instead of complaining about stuff and trying to find a theme that could inspire people to face the adversity or difficult circumstances.
Hardrock Haven: And prior to the album release, you’ve revealed as many as five singles – what was such a decision prompted by and do you think it actually works even better when it comes to streaming platforms, playlists and the way many people consume music these days?
Nils Molin: [laughs] Yeah. I mean, I think that the general reason why we had more single releases for this album was that we had a longer period of time to release singles. Because of the pandemic, there was really no set date and no time pressure, really. We already started mixing the first songs for the new album last fall, so there was a long time leading up to the album release and therefore we had a lot of time to release singles. That being said – like you say, it seems to be that the streaming platforms seem to have even more of that direction, being more single-oriented than album-oriented. And that can definitely be beneficial for bands to release more standalone singles than full albums. But then again, our core audience is primarily hard rock and heavy metal people and they still consume the albums the old school way, if you like. There’s still people who don’t even listen to the singles of their favorite bands and just wait for the whole album to come out and listen through it all in one go. We try to find a balance between the both [audience groups], I think.
Hardrock Haven: And speaking about the singles and the visual side of things, recently you’ve worked on videos to “Yours”, “Power of Will” and “Advent” with a production house Group 13 [original name: Grupa13] based in Wroclaw, Poland. What’s so convincing about their work ethic as well as their visuals that you’ve decided to work with them for the majority of visual representation of the new album?
Nils Molin: I just think they make fantastic videos. I worked with them previously with my other band Amaranthe and I’m a big fan of their music videos [laughs]. It was an absolute pleasure to work with them as it was so easy, so professional, so fast… and a lot of fun. So when it came down to find somebody to make – like you said – the majority of the promotional material in terms of music videos for this album, there were my first option. And I’m very happy with the result.
Hardrock Haven: When we discussed the previous Dynazty album back in the very early 2020 – when the world was much different than today – you said that you try to incorporate some new things to your music each time you enter the studio. So this time, were there any inspirations you’d say were a bit foreign to your style, even if we can consider the new album a sequel to the previous one?
Nils Molin: I think actually a bit of the plan with this album was not to experiment so much more or further than on the past few albums. For example, I think The Dark Delight is more of an experimental album. There are some songs venturing into a different kind of territory. And for this one, we wanted to make a more cohesive, like ten-song kind of an album. But then again, there are still a lot of new influences. I mean, we have an acoustic flamenco guitar solo in “The White.” There’s this crazy middle section with the bass solo, the crazy guitar solos and then finally, an acoustic flamenco guitar solo. “Instinct” has a very specific kind of a middle section so there’s new influences… we also tried out new string arrangements and synthesizer arrangements, so there’s all kinds of development being made within the sound of the band. But we still wanted to maintain the identity that we have built with the last couple of albums while releasing this one.
Hardrock Haven: And if you were going to surprise everyone and reveal the most unexpected source of inspiration for Dynazty, like a band we’d never expect you to draw your inspiration from, what would it be?
Nils Molin: A Swedish artist called Lasse Holm [laughs]. I don’t think you know him, but there’s maybe someone from Sweden out there who knows him [laughs]. But when we wrote the song “Natural Born Killer”, the actual working title for the song was ‘Lasski Holmski’ and I don’t think anybody would be able to pinpoint this influence on that song.
Hardrock Haven: Right! (laughs) And another interesting thing is that while fan clubs seem to be more of a thing of the past, your fan club Titanic Mass seem to be a pretty cohesive unit made by really dedicated people, and the girls in charge are just lovely. What do you think is the particular strength of it and do you think fan clubs are still needed around these days, especially with the social media and all that individual and almost direct way of reaching your favorite artists?
Nils Molin: I definitely think they’re still necessary. If not, it’s a great place for fans to communicate with each other and find new like-minded friends. I know for a fact there are a lot of Dynazty fans that have found friends or formed friendships through the Dynazty fan club, for example, and met in real life, hung out in real life, went to concerts and stuff like this. So I think it’s definitely a very necessary thing. And for me personally, I’m very happy that this fan club exists and that these dedicated people who have started it are still running it. That’s a very good thing.
Hardrock Haven: Absolutely! And now, when it comes to the plans for Dynazty after Final Advent is out, do you think it will be challenging to balance the group’s activity with many other acts you guys take part in?
Nils Molin: No, I don’t think so. I mean, we already have a very good plan for the remainder of this year and all the way to April next year for what we’re doing and I think it will be a good balance between everything and we will have lots of good opportunities and good tours to promote this album. So, I’m very happy with how the rest of year and the first half of the next year looks.
Hardrock Haven: So before we wrap it up, is there anything you’d like to add in the end?
Nils Molin: Well… Thanks for all the support. I hope to see you on tour – and make sure that you listen to the Final Advent album, out August the 26th!
Visit Dynazty online: Official Site | Facebook | Instagram
Watch the videos to the singles off Dynazty’s new album Final Advent:
“Advent”
“Power of Will”
“Yours”
“Natural Born Killer”
“The White”
