TRISTANIA guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Anders Høyvik Hidle has checked in with the following update:

"It’s about time to give you some updates about what we are up to and reveal more news about the upcoming album.

We are still in a writing and pre-production mode, working with producer Waldemar Sorychta. Ten of the tracks for our 6th album are more or less completed, while several more are under way.

I always find it hard to describe our current musical direction with new material in general, and, specifically, before an album is completed. We will record 15-16 tracks for this session, and we still don’t know which ones will make it in the album.

The selection process is always done in the studio and we always try to pick songs that will make the album complete, rather than the single tracks that we favour at the time. Personal favourites have a tendency to change all the time and usually we prefer the songs that have been completed recently, which is to say we tend to look at the album as a whole. The perfect Tristania album should have some sort of running theme throughout the album, although the dynamics between the different songs are just as important. Good examples are songs like 'Sacrilege' and 'Fate From Illumination'. Both were intended to be bonus tracks, as they differ from the rest of the album in their own way. In the studio, I regarded songs like 'Down' and 'Mercyside' to be prominent and, in many ways, defining the album. However, during mixing we found out that these two tracks would fit perfectly into the album and give it the diversity and dynamics we are known for. Today, I see that songs like 'Lotus', 'Fate' and 'Sacrilege' are just as important for Illumination’s identity as 'Down' and 'Mercyside'.

I was thinking today which songs should definitely make it in our new album, but I know from experience that whatever I say now will definitely change when the songs are recorded and completed.

Another issue that we always have to deal with is that the songs we are most happy with during pre-production, tend to be a disappointment when finalized. It may be the singers who just do something a little bit differently during the album-recording that gives the song a slightly different expression, or a song can take a different direction sound-wise compared to the pre-production stage. A synth sound might be changed or the cymbals played differently. Small details like these can make any of our favourite songs lose their magic for us, even though everyone loves that song.

The perfect example that comes to show my personal disappointment is 'Hatred Grows' from World of Glass. This was one of the songs I had highest hopes for, prior to the recordings. The intention was an ultra-heavy and atmospheric doom tune but, in my eyes, it took another direction and ended up becoming quite anonymous. It made it to the album because everyone else liked it, but for me 'Hatred Grows' has always been a song that should have been deconstructed and re-recorded in order to find the atmosphere and heaviness that the song should have had. I have to admit, it's the only Tristania song having my name in the credits that I’m not proud of given how it ended up sounding, considering my intentions and hopes for the song."

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