Finnish Melodic Death Metal band Hilastherion have teamed up with The Metal Resource to bring you the exclusive premiere of the new lyric video for ‘When Sorrow Dies’ The song is taken from their new album ”Psalm 59” which is released on April 19th via Rottweiller Records. The video can be watched below.
Hilastherion is a melodic death metal band from Vaasa, Finland, that plays metal in the vein of some fellow Finnish metal bands, but with originality. The songs are filled with heavy guitar riffs, brutal screams, catchy melodic lines, fast guitar shredding and lyrics with an uplifting and straightforward message.
Hilastherion was formed in 2003 when Anders Olin came together with William Rönn, with Anders writing some uplifting lyrics and William putting music to his words, but it wasn’t until 2006 that Hilastherion became a whole band, consisting of the members William Rönn, Joel Björkstrand, Niclas Buss (Parakletos, Northern Flame) and Henrik Fellman. During the summer of 2006 Niclas composed the rest of the music to Anders’ lyrics and improved William‘s songs to become even more melodic and catchy. This resulted in a demo consisting of 11 songs.
Shortly after the demo was finished in August 2006, Niclas wanted to start recording the album. To begin the band got help from Jani Stefanovic (Divinefire, Miseration, Solution .45) with the drums. After receiving these great drum backing tracks, Hilastherion started recording the album in Niclas‘ Home studio. In February 2007 all recordings were finished and the band established collaboration with the musician and sound engineer Torbjörn Weinesjö (Veni Domine) to mix the songs in his studio in Sollentuna, Sweden. This cooperation turned out really well and the debut album was finally mastered in Vaasa, in early March by Sami “Hannu” Koivisto (who has worked with Amorphis, Norther, Waltari). The band got a deal for their debut album through the Finnish label Maanalainen Levykauppa and a release date in November the same year was set. At the same time Anders Bengs joined the band handling the keyboards.
With this lineup, the band performed a few gigs at festivals in Finland, such as Immortal Metal Fest (Nokia), Maata Näkyvissä (Turku) and Night of Arts (Vaasa) along with some club gigs. After a while the band got a few internal problems and was on hold for two years, however Niclas and William continued writing new material. In 2011 the band started being active again when the bass player and drummer were replaced. The band received a much stronger line-up with Henrik Böckelman and Jari Ketola. A great deal of help with lyrical writing for songs was also found with Eddie DeWitte, an enthusiastic fan and friend of the band and a contributing artist. During 2012 the band entered the studio and recorded the new album from April to August. The album was mixed by Sami Koivisto in September and mastered by Virtalähde Mastering in October that same year. After a while Hilastherion acquired a deal with the label Die and Gain Records to finally release the new album “Signs of the End” in May 2014.
In 2015 keyboardist Anders Bengs quit the band due to personal reasons and Trygve Strömvall joined instead. Trygve also plays keyboards in Niclas‘ and Jari‘s other bandproject “Northern Flame”, that also released its debut album in august 2014.
In 2016, Hilastherion played their first live performance outside Finland at Elements of Rock in Uster, Switzerland. In 2017, they performed at the first edition of Rainbow Rock in Sollentuna, Sweden, where they also returned for a second performance in 2018. For the 2018 performance, Thomas Lindell joined the band as a guitarist, allowing William Rönn to focus more on his vocals
At the moment, in 2019, Hilastherion have recorded an EP called “Psalm 59”. There is also some ready material for a following album, but as of March 2019, there is not yet a timeline for the recording of this album. More info about this album will be released on the band’s homepage, hilastherion.com.
Our review for “Psalm 59” can be found here.
Lineup 2019:
William Rönn (vocals)
Niclas Buss (guitars, vocals)
Henrik Böckelman (bass, clean vocals)
Jari Ketola (drums)
Trygve Strömvall (keyboards)
Thomas Lindell (live guitars)
Studio albums/EPs:
“Taken from Darkness” (full-length, 2007)
“Signs of the End” (full-length, 2014)
“Psalm 59” (ep, 2019)
Weblinks: Facebook / Instagram
Lyric video for ‘When Sorrow Dies’
