What are your feelings behind the works on "Set Sail to Mystery", and are you happy with the overall outcome? |
I think with the new album we kind of did a "best of" of everything we did so far. It has the wild energy of "The Wolves...", the atmospherics of "Carpathia" and the fresh and "rock out" vibe of our debut. Production wise we wanted to go a little into a more unpolished, more natural but still "fat" sound - I think with success.
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| What were some of the major influences behind the material for this release?
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Lyrically its Byron, Poe, Lovecraft, Wilde and C.A. Smith - the usual TVB suspects. Musically we draw alot of inspiration from classic bands such as Iron Maiden, Metallica, Entombed and the atmospherics of a band like Dead Can Dance or movie soundtracks.
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| There exists a bonus disc to this album that features two bonus tracks and five tracks that are "Classic Monochrome" versions. Why did you choose to turn these five songs into versions that sound like they came off an early vinyl record?
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It's a cool idea, isn't it? We just thought it is very atmospheric and fits to the general "early 20th century" vibe of the band. |
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| I did enjoy what I heard of them. Is there a foreseeable future for those kinds of songs as a final product for a future The Vision Bleak full-length?
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Who knows? We are pretty unpredictable methinks so maybe one day we will do something like that on a full length but we have no plans (or new material whatsoever) yet.
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| What was the writing process for this album like? Where there any issues that arose during it, or any special methods used to compose this release? |
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Nothing special about the song writing. We found our formula of writing since "Carpathia" and it works. Also I must stress that this time we left alot more space for spontanity and new ideas for the recordings and didn't work out everything as precisely as on the previous album.
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| Considering the creative nature behind many of the tracks on "Set Sail to Mystery", what are the chances of seeing a conceptual DVD release from the band, such as an animated film or even series of music videos that tell a story?
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We have no plans yet for a DVD but have been talking and gathering material since the beginning of the band. We need a striking idea for it though, since we do not want to release the typical "Live Gigs and drinking in the bus" DVD that many other bands release. We do not want to take away the mysticism of the band.
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| A Curse of the Grandest Kind and I Dined With the Swans really highlight the album and both seem to be a step in the right direction for a more dramatic Metal style. Was there anything special about these tracks prior to recording? |
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Two of the first songs we wrote for the album. I think both are pretty special for us since they are very simple in their structure and focus on one main theme throughout the complete song. I think we will write more of this kind of songs in the future - yes!
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| Another thing I noticed about "Set Sail to Mystery" is that the album does seem to be a conceptual one, or even have some tracks that are tied together, whereas some of your previous releases such as "Carpathia - A Dramatic Poem". Is there something I'm missing about the release and there is an underlying concept to some, if not all the material of this release? Or was there a conscious decision to depart from this type of story telling in your music?
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Set Sail To Mystery doesn't follow a conceptual storyline as "Carpathia" did but TVB is a conceptual band - everything we do follows the concept of the band which is dealing with the supernatural and horror themes. On the new album we focused on Inspiration from classic writers though. Byron, Poe, Lovecraft, Smith, Wilde and Heine have been inspirations to the lyrics.
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| I thank you guys for taking the time out to answer these questions, and hopefully we'll continue to hear more great music from The Vision Bleak in the near future. |
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