Ironic, that an exact year after the dissolution of EVERGREY, founder/frontman/guitarist Tom England is on the trans-Atlantic phone, rested, invigorated and enjoying the strongest reviews of his career, for the forthcoming Glorious Collision. “It’s weird. The pre-release single just want gold in Sweden. That’s for sales of physical product! I didn’t even know they still made them. We have never received so many rave reviews. Everyone says this is the best thing we’ve done. I might not agree, but it’s extremely rewarding. I guess the word is relieved, more than anything.”

While departed guitarist Henrik Danhage and drummer Jonas Ekdahl had floated a trial balloon demo with their DeathDestruction project, England is adamant “musical differences” were not the real cause of the break-up, however convenient that rationale might be to offer. “What it really came down to was that we really didn’t have any fun anymore, spending time together. That’s what made me decide we should do something else. Doing this (musician’s) lifestyle, you spend so much time on the road and away from home, (so) it’s important you enjoy the two hours you are onstage. If that turns out to be different, which it did, for all of us, then it shows onstage as well. That’s not cool for the audience, or ourselves. You have to have some sort of self-respect. It came down to the fact we valued our friendship more than this little thing called Evergrey. I just spoke to Henrik today and he’s happy (too). It would be stupid to throw away twelve years of our lives on shitty details that might involve 5,000 dollars or something ridiculous like that.”

Looking back, Monday Morning Apocalypse (their swansong with Inside Out) attempted a style outside the box that many a fan refused to embrace. With Torn, the debut for current label SPV, Evergrey seemed to recover some ground, but the financial insolvency of the label made the situation unbearable, which England admits, played something of a role in the former line-up’s demise. “We’ve never done what others think we should be or want us to be. We’ve always done what we thought was best for Evergrey, at all times. Things started with the Torn album. We thought we’d done a great album and then our record company went bankrupt. They didn’t support us in a way they should have, because they couldn’t. With that came so many negative things: not touring in America. Not even touring in Europe. There was no label support: no one to pay for advertising. We sort of lost interest, in a way.”

As to the new title, Glorious Collision, its originator explains, “We go through life, and it’s easy for me to give examples of it now, but we collide with people and differing opinions. If you’re married, you go through collisions every day! At first, all these collisions seem very harsh, or maybe even devastating (like splitting up Evergrey). We didn’t even know if we were going to continue. We just knew that we weren’t going to continue the way we were. I asked Rikard (Zander, keyboards) if he wanted to continue and he said, ‘Of course, don’t you?’ and I was like, ‘Maybe not.’ We took a week, to see if we even could write without the other guys. You never know how much moral support someone is. When they disappear, you appreciate them more than you thought.”

Set on continuing, albeit with a new cast, England recalls the recruitment process. “It’s a different story for each guy. For Marcus (Jidda, ex-ROYAL HUNT, guitar), I called up my friend Pontus Norgren, who currently plays guitar in HAMMERFALL, but before that, he was our soundman. He’s a great guitarist and I asked him if he knew anyone. He said, ‘I’m next to one. You can talk to him right now.’ Pontus is married to Marcus’ sister. I talked to Marcus for about 30 seconds. He gave me his website. I checked it out, called him back and said ‘OK, let’s go!’ With the bass player, Johan (Niemann), Marcus called him up and said, ‘Do you want to do this?’ He said no. We were totally set on him saying yes, but he hung up! After he hung up, he thought, ‘Shit? What did I say?” but he forgot about it. ‘Fuck it, I can’t call him back and tell him I said the wrong thing.’ A couple of days later, he met Marcus in a bar, in Stockholm, and Marcus persuaded him. ‘Yes, I can do it. I’ve changed my mind.’ The drummer (Hannes Van Dahl) is a drum student of my friend Snowy Shaw, who is now the singer in THERION, which is weird because Johan played bass in Therion and that’s the first band we supported. So here we are.”

‘Leave It Behind’ opens the album, a choir of children’s voices is the first thing one hears. Was this meant to usher in a new era, the naivety and newness of youth representing a fresh start? “No, but that was a nice thought,” he laughs. “We’re drunk, fat Swedes. We don’t have any thoughts other than that! That was actually the first new song that we wrote and kept. We felt, ‘Let’s make a nice short intro.’ We never really had intros before, unless you could ‘Touch Of Blessing’ as an intro, but this is also in the song. It comes back.”

‘The Disease…’ and ‘…The Distance’ are linked by the three continuation dots and separated by a trio of songs. While England admits they’re connected, he doesn’t want to give away how (at least not so early in the promotional cycle). “Actually, that’s quite a riddle that I’d like to see if people can work out. I don’t want to give it away. It’s got something to do with music. That’s the hint I can give you.”

On the internet, the vocal old guard has welcomed the prominence of Zander’s keyboards. Was that always the plan, or something of a reward for his standing alongside England? “Rikard has never been the guy who shouted the loudest. He’s always had a strong opinion that keyboards are important for Evergrey, but he never stood up for his ideas as loudly as Henrik did for the guitars. For me, it’s the song that’s important. I don’t give a fuck if it’s the keyboard or guitar that you hear. Naturally, now that it’s me and Rikard writing, without any other considerations, there’s been more keyboards. If you listen to the first and second album, and the third, there’s keyboards all over. I don’t know what happened along the way, but whatever happened, it still brought us to where we are today.”

So why opt for a black and white drawing for the artwork, did it depict your mood at the time? “But it’s not black and white. It’s blue and (ever) grey. (So maybe I was right-Mark) I’ve been wanting to do this comic book sketch thing for a long while. It will all come together when you see the whole booklet. The cover is hardly a great picture, but it’s the one that symbolizes the title the best. The whole booklet is filled with these hand drawn, pencil pictures. It was not done by computer. It was an actual artist, who made 16 pictures. We even took out the lyrics, to make the pictures stand on their own. Then there’s a separate page for the lyrics.”

When it comes to live shows, yes there will be some over here, but not until the Fall. “That’s so hard. We’ve got eight albums and if you only take two songs from each, that’s 16 songs! tend to play more and there are some songs we have to play. So we have to be really selective and being an opening act? That will be extremely hard! I think we have to let the audience decide. Depending upon the sales. We’re doing ProgPower USA, two shows: the first is acoustic and then another very special show, that I can’t tell you about yet. That is the first show of our (North American) tour that we’ll start. I can’t tell you the bands. They’re set, as are the dates, but I’m not allowed to say anything yet.” Adopting a less serious note, he continues rattling off (hopefully) intended targets. “We just hooked up with new agents and booking companies, so there will be lots of things (announced) in the next few weeks. We need to use the (positive) publicity in every way we can. We need to go to Japan, but that’s not going to happen. I don’t know why. Somebody fucked somebody’s wife in Japan? It’s never going to happen! I don’t know what the Hell is going on over there. They don’t like us, I guess. There’s places in Canada we’ve never been, that I’d love to go to. We’ve been in America lots and since we did that secondary markets tour with IN FLAMES, we’ve seen a lot of America. I’m looking forward to any new city I haven’t seen. I’m happy and that’s what I’m going to try to keep on being. That’s what the last three, four or five years have lacked. That’s a long time to go unhappy.”

Things are definitely headed in the right direction!

Evergrey's eighth studio album, Glorious Collision, is due for release on February 8th in Japan, February 22nd in North America, February 25th in Germany and February 28th throughout Europe via SPV/Steamhammer. An Amazon pre-order is available below: