Norway's OCTAVIA SPERATI have issued a track-by-track overview of thier new album, Grave Submerged. It is as follows:

‘Guilty Am I’

Silje: “This is taken from our first EP. There’s a difficult story behind that. We all got to know each other through the death of a good friend of ours. Trine, Gyri, Bodil and me got together and we turned out to be really good friends. I had a really hard time after our friend died, and the lyrics are based around my feelings about it all. I was stuck with a feeling of guilt. I decided not to talk about it, until now basically. We just didn’t want to use it as a press thing, and also out of respect for the guy’s family. It’s a very personal song, but that is the true story behind it. Of course I think about it still, but it’s a song now and that helps me to deal with it.”

‘Moonlit’

Silje: “Some of the songs are very obtuse. I don’t want them to be about anything specific. I want them to be open to interpretation, but this is probably the most political song on the album. We are not a political band, but I find it very hard to not be influenced by everything you read or see on the news. Mainly all the religious fights from poor countries, both economically and culturally, towards our world are themes that makes me want to speak out. But at the same time the right of speech is threatened. It all comes down to those people being poor and unhappy and often lack knowledge of what they actually are fighting against. This song is reflected on the cover as well. As you can see on the front there is the planet about to be 'going under'. One of the things we mean by that is to mirror how we as human beings are capable of destroying the beauty surrounding us, both physically and psychologically. It might sound like a cliché, but it is still very real to me."

‘Going North’

Trine: "When a track finally is recorded and all is set and done, it is the first time to really decide whether the track turned out the way I had figured. And when it comes to Going North I am very satisfied with what I hear! In particularly as this song has been through quite a lot, as it was one of the 'creativity tasks' for the auditioning drummers after Kikken left the band; I have to admit I am very happy it turned out to be Ivar`s drum style on this track! Perhaps it’s because we have evolved similarities in musical preferences after playing together in another band for some time, but I find him perfect for it! And with vocals and everything set, I really enjoy listening to this track."

‘Don’t Believe A Word’

Silje: “We wanted a song that was a little quieter for the album, to add some contrast. We got the idea of doing this THIN LIZZY song and were wondering if it we could do a quiet version of it. In the end, we thought it was a good idea, so we went for it. The lyrics aren’t the nicest lyrics in the world, and at the same time, it’s a really sad song. Even on the original version, which is very upbeat and catchy, it’s still a sad song. Somehow we made it even sadder. We knew that if we messed around with it and spoiled it then people would hate us, so it was a scary thing to do. But I think we did a good job.”

‘…And Then The World Froze’

Bodil: “The idea for this song started with the intro/verse riff and then the rest of the riffs just came in naturally. I wanted a very straight forward song that would be great to play live. Usually it takes me a lot of time deciding how many times each verse and chorus should be repeated but with this song it was very easy.”

‘The Final Rest’

Bodil: “The chorus riffs in this song was made many years ago, and finally I came up with a verse riff to complete it. The mood in the intro is inspired by Twin Peaks which I always have been a huge fan of. In the end this song came out sounding totally different from what I initially thought it would."

‘Deprivation’

Trine: “The difference between this track and the one included on the EP is basically two new riffs and a re-issue of the refrain. As it has always felt like the song never was really finished, it now finally is, and with a gloomier touch; I am very happy with the way it turned out holding the right amount of drive and doom! I love this track!J”

‘Provenance Of Hate’

Gyri: “This is also one of our older tunes - and as one of the heaviest songs we thought it deserved a spot on the record. This is a song which normally also works really well live - it has massive drums, intense guitar parts and some cool twists.”

‘Dead End Poem’

Silje: ”These lyrics were written by Ivar from ENSLAVED. In fact, he is the reason why I started to sing. He’s the first person who made me sing. He wrote a song (not for Enslaved) and asked me to make vocals on it. I really liked it, but his computer blew up so the music disappeared. Anyway, I made a brand new piano version of the song and decided I wanted to use both the lyrics and the vocal melodies for our new album, so I asked Ivar if that was okay and he was happy about it. We made a completely new version of it. Enslaved used the lyrics on their ‘Below The Lights’ album, and it was called ‘As Fire Swept Clean The Earth’. We changed the title for our album.”

'Submerged’

Tone: “This song was originally written as a stageintro some time ago. I had some ideas for the song, which I wanted atmospheric, but it was not yet finished when I went into studio. Morfeus was doing the recording, and he had some good inputs, and started playing around with some sounds. In the end the song became a result of us working together, me doing the piano and strings, and him doing the samples and soundeffects. When we were recording Grace Submerged it was Trine's idea that we should put the stageintro on the record, as an outro. Morfeus did a remix of the intro, making it a bit shorter than the original version, and it was given the name ‘Submerged’. We still use it as a stageintro, but now we are using this version from the record.”