Vocalist/guitarist IHSAHN (ex-EMPEROR) will see his new solo album, angL (artwork pictured), released through Mnemosyne Productions/Candlelight Records on May 27th in North America (26th in the UK). BW&BK;'s Dom Lawson spoke to the legendary frontman about the record - here are few excerpts from the chat:

BW&BK;: You’re renowned for your meticulous approach to making records. Did the creation of angL follow your usual blueprint for making music?

Ihsahn: “I was very pleased with the approach I used for The Adversary, as I put a lot of frames to it and limitations. Well, not so much limitations, but some rules of thumb to focus the creative energy in the right direction, and I think that’s very important, especially when you’ve done this for so many years and what you really want to do is go and check out all the latest presets on your software synthesizers but what you really need to do is write metal riffs! So I got a lot of rules of thumb when working on The Adversary. I did the same for this album, I have this book where I write notes and I start with a framework for the album I’ve imagined in my mind, the kind of album I want, based on what I did on The Adversary. So I put that up first and again I started writing metal riffs, not fiddling around with keyboards or anything like that, just basic guitar riffs, and built the song more or less like that. I’ve been asked before, ‘Don’t you write more songs than you actually record?’, but for me it’s kind of all in the same process. Of course I go through a lot of other ideas, but I don’t bother finishing some of them. I keep working on the ideas until they’re finished or I let them go. Hopefully I end up with a lot of stuff that I’m pleased with. Then I work on the basic songs with programmed drums and twin guitars. I can’t write riffs anymore with just one guitar. This time, as soon as I had songs finished, going from A to B, with drums and guitars, I started working on the lyrical material, getting the important parts in first before I start working on the production and keyboards and layers and all that. So that was the writing process. It seems very pragmatic and almost factory-like, but it’s just a matter of focusing the energy.”

BW&BK;: Is there any spontaneity in what you do as a song writer?

Ihsahn: “I guess there is a little. The best things always come when I don’t have a clue how I wrote a riff, and that’s the idea behind doing these basic sketches and not starting to arrange or to make things sound nice before everything’s ready. I just write sketches and then do some basic mixes and listen to them on my iPod to get some perspective. If it works really well at that stage, then you know you have something to build on.”

BW&BK;: Did the Emperor reunion influence the direction you went in for the new songs?

Ihsahn: “No, not really. I think I was too far into the process of writing material already. With The Adversary, I did the material before we started talking about the Emperor shows. Maybe it influenced me on a subconscious level, but when I finished The Adversary I had a very clear image of what I wanted to do differently on the next one. With the first one, I knew it had to be a metal album but there were so many things that I wanted to try out, like doing something like ‘The Pain Is Still Mine’ which borders on influences from ‘70s rock operas to the whole Sad Wings Of Destiny type of thing. It’s just things that I needed to have a go at.”

BW&BK;: This album is much heavier and more purposefully metal in conception and delivery. Was that deliberate?

Ihsahn: “With this album I figured out more of the style that is me as a solo artist from the experiment that was The Adversary, and also in technical terms I was very purist on the first one, using just two guitars and no overdubbing and it has a very thin and open sound. This time I wanted more emphasis on heavy guitar layers. From a production point of view, I recorded it and mixed it, and I have a great interest in the whole studio thing and it’s about learning different approaches. This time I mixed the album in our own studio, so the approach is different on that level too, I guess.”

BW&BK;: Do you consider your solo work to be a continuation of what you did with Emperor?

Ihsahn: “I would say both yes and no. Yes, because in the end I did the majority of Emperor’s material, culminating with Prometheus where I did all of it, but now I just keep on doing metal albums and trying not to mix in too many things. That’s why we have Mnemosyne now, so that we can do everything we want under that umbrella, but not necessarily all those things on the same album! Sometimes it’s nice to limit things down slightly, to purify the expression in every direction. But then no, because there are so many things I can do now that are new. When I wrote Prometheus, yes, it was more progressive, but I tried to build that album on the foundation that was Emperor. As a solo artist, I feel freer to experiment and to widen my little bubble without having to be as loyal to the history of a band and to the other members.”

AngL tracklisting: 'Misanthrope', 'Scarab', 'Unhealer' (featuring OPETH's Mikael Åkerfeldt), 'Emancipation', 'Malediction', 'Alchemist', 'Elevator', 'Threnody', 'Monolith'.

Candlelight UK will also be releasing the album on Limited Edition double-vinyl.

Ihsahn interview about Satanism: