"The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

Enflamed by critics who slagged the band's first two albums, Nightspawn and Malformed Seed, Swedish blackened deathers Grief of Emerald let the venom percolate for two years before releasing their current platter, Christian Termination.

Distilling the band's sound to a thick, tasty essence, the new album takes Blake's tygers at their word. Pummeling riffs punctuated by harmonic squeals, swatches of orchestral keys, flayed skins and grim vocals dominate songs like 'Scum Of The Earth' and 'Raped By The Servant Of God'. Produced and engineered by keyboardist Robert Bengtsson, Christian Termination captures and transmutes GoE's justifiable rage: "We were pretty pissed of at all the idiot reviews and shit like that. This time we just thought: Fuck 'em all. If they don't like it, well fine; if they do, well, we don't care. We did this CD for ourselves, and that's it."

Softening for at least one critic's praise of the new disc, Bengtsson says, "Thanks. I guess you will improve for each album you make. I have bought myself a 24-channel studio now, so I guess it got a little bit easier with proper equipment . Now I have a 44 channel mixing table, 24 audiotracks, motorized faders, etc. I can produce more easily now. I got much help from Jonas [drums] and Johnny [the band's vocalist, who cofounded GoE with bassist Anders] in the band too! I just went down to the studio and put out the mics, and they did all the recording by themselves. That way, I didn't get so fucking tired when it came to the final mix."

Explaining the long hiatus between albums, Bengtsson accounts thusly for the band's time: "Making music mostly. We did some touring. The last year we spent a lot of time in the rehearsal room to make new tracks."

As far as Christian Termination's basic objective, Bengtsson says, "I can only speak for myself, and that is that I hate Christianity as a religion. In fact I hate all kinds of religion! I can't really understand how you can believe in such shit! Can't people just open their eyes and see what comes out of religion? Wars, pedophilia (the sex scandal in the US, etc), greedy people. In the same way I love it because it's very interesting to see how easily people can be fooled."

Fredrik, the drummer on Nightspawn, pens the majority of the band's lyrics. "I think he write great lyrics," Bengtsson says. "If we like the lyric we'll keep it . I don't really care what it's about as long it's not a Christian lyric -- [laughs]. I guess you have to blame him for the lyrics."

Responding to the frequent comparisons between Grief of Emerald and Dissection, Bengtsson demurs, "Dissection is a great band, but I think they are much more melodic -- in a brutal way -- than us. I guess you get impressions of everything you hear. I don't think when I make a riff: 'Hmmm, today I'm going to do an Morbid Angel riff, for example. I just play what comes out.'"

Bengtsson doesn't see his band catering to any specific genre. "I don't really care what scene we are -- we just like playing what we do. There's not much to say about it. I listen to a lot of different music like Mayhem, Immortal, Morbid Angel, Orange Goblin, Cathedral, Rammstein, Slipknot, and the list goes on."

After headlining a European tour beginning in October, Grief of Emerald's future plans remain wide open: "I guess we'll make a new album. Time will tell," Bengtsson concludes.

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