Sortis de nul part et pourtant particulièrement matures pour leur jeune age, les Norvégiens d'ANSUR semblent désormais destinés à un avenir prometteur en l'espace d'un seul et unique album. Une petite interview semblait indispensable pour en apprendre d'avantage sur ANSUR, son passé, son actualité et surtout son futur.

VS - Axiom is not available for several weeks and I know you've spent few month in studio to record it. What was your main feeling the first time you've seen your record in a shop ? That's a kind of deliverance but there's also a sort of "no way back". Af
Torstein - It was some kind of victorious moment for us, especially the first time I saw the printed cover. We waited almost a year to get this album in the stores, so we had a lot of time getting used to the idea that we're now a recording band putting an album in the store shelves. A great deal of that time went into the planning of our next album, so we don't look back. No
second thoughts whatsoever about wanting to do what we do, and we have no problem spreading our music as far as possible. And of course, by putting an album out, we'll have more live playing opportunities than ever before, and we really like doing gigs, jamming,
twisting the songs etc. Even though the album has a very special approach to production and atmosphere, I'd say the live approach has more feeling and energy, although we can't do some of the things we did on the album live.

VS – Talking about the production, “Axiom” sounds raw. We are far from the sofisticated sound you use to have with progressive band. Was it a choice or just a lack of money ? That’s one of the big contrats of the album, with vocals. I’ve got the feeling y
Torstein - Well, we didn't really think of ourselves as a progressive band when we recorded this. To be honest with you, I had no idea how it was going to sound when we first started in the studio. It was our intention to have a very special sound, but if we had some more money (or the experience of having recorded an album before, like we have now) we would have chosen some better quality over the production I think.
The vocals were originally developed during the recording of the first demo ("Carved in Flesh"), and it had just the rawness and characteristics that we needed. We decided it was some kind of a trademark, and we kept in on the album. On the new album, we're giving up the distortion to make the vocals sound more organic - which will be a key word in the production this time.
I think as a progressive band, we will always explore, even if it costs us our black metal backround. I see Ansur now more of a progressive band than a black metal band, and we simply want to do something that no one else does.

VS – Do you think you did with “Axiom” ? That’s not a small deal to find a personal sound, a musical indentity nowadays. Do you feel furstrated when you read some reviews talking about some OPETH, EMPEROR or even PINK FLOYD influences ?
Torstein - A personal identity and personal sound is exactly what we're after. I mean, we never intended to make an obscure album who nobody but us would like, we have our limits with characteristics. But if someone puts our album on, and everybody immediately hears that it's Ansur, I'm satisfied. Our next album will actually take some kind of less anti-commercial turn, but it will be totally unique (we're looking very forward to start recording the new material).
The reviews talk about those bands yes, especially EMPEROR. Doesn't bother us at all, I can understand it. Very proud when someone mentions PINK FLOYD, who is our main inspiration (if such a thing can exist). The journalists can definitely understand what the music on "Axiom" is about. One thing I often worry about is the lyrics. Reviewers can't read lyrics on the promo version; they're just told that the album has a concept. Sometimes the lyrics of an album can change my whole perception of the music, and I've gone from hating to loving albums that way before. We actually haven't gotten any feedback on the lyrics from reviews at all.

VS – Well, if lyrics are that important for you I’m afraid most journalists didn’t get this point. The fact is, you put so many work in the music that I’ve had the feeling lyrics were a detail for the band. I also thought you could release a full instrume
Torstein - The lyrics has been put a lot of work into, but it isn't an important detail of the band generally. We're being judged after our music, and I think it should stay that way.
A full instrumental album is a good idea, but not something I could picture us doing for the moment.
The album ''concept'' is a story in a post-apocalyptic setting, just imagine Mad Max in a grander scale, hehe. I don't want to reveal the entire story, but the first song (''Earth Erasure'') depicts exactly what the title says. The earth gets destroyed, leaving everything as a wasteland. Oceans vaporise, so survivors wander around in gigantic salt deserts. It's just a story making the album a little more interesting to people who like to read lyrics, just look at bands like
BAL-SAGOTH. So no, we don't think it's pretentious at all.

VS – There’s huge suprising point about ANSUM. “Axiom” is first album full of maturity but you guys are pretty young. How is that possible to record an album like yours when you’re 16 ? That’s not easy to play progressive metal. Did you start practising i
Torstein - I think I learned the riff for Pink Floyd – Breathe when I was about 5 or 6 years old. So I guess you could call us genius prodigies, haha! Seriously, this has just been the hobby through the years. While other kids played football, we sat around playing guitar. We grew up with a lot of progressive bands like Pink Floyd and Yes, and that's what most of us still listens to. But I've had some experiences with people like 20 years older than me having the exact same taste in music, and the guys in the band we all have more or less the same taste. Well, when we got our record deal I was a little nervous that the label would think we were too young, but I actually think they see it as an advantage. They've never advertised us as a young band, though.

VS – I see… but there’s something I can’t explain myself. I’ve heard, ANSUR was a black metal band when you’ve recorded your first demo “Carved in Flesh”. How is that possible for a band to change that much in few month ? Most of time this kind of evoluti
Torstein - A few months are a bit of an underestimation. The material for ''Axiom'' was written and pre-produced in about a year and a half before we started recording it. Just after ''Carved in Flesh'' was recorded, we still had some kind of black metallish thing going. The first song we got together after the demo was ''Earth Erasure'', so it's no coincidence that it's the song on the album which mostly resembles black metal. I wrote a song-by-song special which contains info and facts on each song on the album; you can see on different webzines (also linked under ''media'' on www.ansursite.com).The line-up changes had a little bit to do with it. But the style of the album was mostly conceived by me and Stian. Our old bassist/lyricist was a lot more traditional than we were, when I wanted to do something new, he would want to stick to the old stuff. So he ended up leaving, but he's still a good friend of the band. It's the guy I call when we have no one to pick us up after parties, hehe. Plus he's going into bartending, so we'll finally have a use for him. I don't really want to call the whole process an evolution, we just made up our minds about what we wanted to do, and we did it.

VS – To go back to “Axiom”, I know you’re also in charge of all the programming work. That’s not always obvious but there’s a lot of little details behind the music. There’s almost two listening levels in “Axiom”. I’ve got the feeling these details played
Torstein - I did most of the programming with different soft-synths. Almost everything is computerized, but there's some effects that were created manually too. E.g. the intro of ''Post-Apocalyptic Wastelands'', Stian came with up with the idea to use an Whammy-pedal (a pitch bending-pedal) and an unplugged jack to create that metallic effect. I had many ideas to which effects we could have and where they would fit in (before we started recording), but most of the stuff you hear on the album is created spontaneously. One of my favourite moments on "Axiom" is when that spaced out riff comes in "Interloper" around 4:00 with a very atmospheric and desolate effect. As for effects on the new album, we're actually aiming for less "non-guitar/bass/drums"-stuff, but when it will kick in, it will kick in good.A song like "Sowers of Discord" couldn't have worked on "Axiom" without the choirs, that element adds a really special touch. Live, we do it without the effects. I never thought it would work on a song like that, but it's actually a much better live song than the rest of the songs. The energy is very flowing, and the song progresses very naturally in comparison to the other songs. We occasionally jam out a middle part instead of the effect-guitar break. Effects add a touch, but they're in no way essential to our music.

VS – When I’m listening your answers, I’ve got the feeling “Axiom” is already an old story for the band. After all, that’s normal as you finished it more than a year ago. I guess the work for your second album is in good way. Is that easy to talk about th
Torstein - I wouldn't call "Axiom" an old story yet, the album is still our live material, and it's also how people perceive us these days. But we've written material for almost a year now, and some of the pieces are coming together. Initially we used a lot of time just thinking about ideas and musical concepts, a sort of a "template" for how we would create our new music. Characteristics is a key word here, I can promise you that no one else will sound like this! But we aren't going to make some obscure album, we are actually arranging the songs more traditionally than before, with choruses etc. More melody and progressive things will also come clearer than before. I could talk about the new album all day, but I don't want to give it all away!
I guess the release in the past months has slowed down the new album a bit. After all, it's not that easy to "move on" when the old album takes up most of our time.We should be finished with the album by summer, and it will as always, be recorded and produced by us.

VS – Well, I think it’s time to finish this interview with your last comment for this time and let you go back to work on the second full length. Thanks for your time, dude.
It's been a pleasure answering the interview! We hope that you frenchies buy
the album, and we also hope to come play there one day. Until next time!

Related links :
http://www.ansur-band.tk/
http://www.candlelightrecords.co.uk/
http://www.nocturnalart.com/