You seem to be rather fast in releasing new stuff! Two promos within less than half a year… uhm, looks like you don’t like to spend your time in vain. Any way, “Nocte” is the newest recording made by MORIA. Speak about it.

- The explanation to our fast release of our second promo is that we take the band very seriously and are giving it a lot of our time. Another explanation is also that we have a lot of material. About “Nocte”… the largest improvement from “Minas Ithil” is the sound quality. We spended much more time in the studio this time and we are much more satisfied with the result at "Nocte" compared to "Minas Ithil". Anyway, "Nocte" contains 5 tracks including the intro titled “Nocte”.

What new changes were made in your experience composing and performing  music from “Minas Ithil” to “Nocte”? What were the improvements?

- The sound is much more aggressive and mean than the sound of "Minas Ithil". We have also worked harder with the melodic parts this time, such as: acoustic guitar, more female vocals and even some flute.

As far as I know, MORIA is a young band, thus having a short history  behind it… Anything you’d like to mark out of your past time with the band; any highlights, activities or whatever that may be of importance…?

- Our largest gig was at the culture house of Stockholm in December 99. One special thing about us is the constilation… we are a “Family band” though Jesper and Joel are brothers, Tobias their cousin and Vicky and Jesper are engaged.

What is it alike to have a female person in the band?

- We think it's great to have a female member in the band, and we are lucky that we have one with skills that matches our music.

Would you like to discuss my review on “Minas Ithil”? I mean those lines I drew between MORIA and SIEBENBURGEN…

- We admit that our music has some sort of similarity to SIEBENBURGEN, but we would not name them as an influense to our songs. By the way, Jesper played with SIEBENBURGEN for a while but quited to consentrate on MORIA.

Is there any special kind of concept behind the band? Perhaps, certain sort of message that should be spread?

- Our lyrics are dark and poetic tales but include no special message.

You guys seem to be one yet more band heavily inspired by Tolkien’s works… Well, no doubts, he’s a talented writer, although I still can’t really understand why so many black metallers keep on basing their lyrical concept on “Master Of The Rings”, while this book was  based on typical Catholic perceptions of good and evil!

- Our connection to Tolkien is not as strong as it may seem on "Minas Ithil". Only a few of our songs (especialy the older) relates to “The Master Of The Rings.”, As said … most of our lyrics are dark stories and tales of medieval wars.

Have you ever heard anything regarding Nick Perumov? He wrote a sequel to “Master Of The Rings” (which appears as much more exciting work, I believe) aswell as plenty of other works of his own. The “fantasy” ones, of course…

- No… we have not heard about Nick Perumov. Besides… a sequel to “The Master Of The Rings”? Is that possible? (YES! - ED)

Haven’t you gained any recognition either in Sweden or worldwide yet?

- Not in form of a contract... (yet...), but we will participate on at least one compilation CD, “Voices Of Death Part IV – The Metal Crusade” from the Swedish label V.O.D. Records. And perhaps at Phyramid Productions compilation “Local Noise”. We have also been asked to participate with interviews in some metal zines.

As I’m in the band myself, moreover, the one responsible for answering interviews, I know it’s useless to ask a question “where do you take your influences from” or anything like that. So I’d better wonder what are your current favorites (both, metal and non)?

- The bands that we listen to at the moment are as follow: LORD BELIAL, WITHERED BEAUTY, HYPOCRITE, MARDUK and CRADLE OF FILTH...

We consider Mozart, Sibelius and Grieg “classic” composers nowadays, however let me ask what will most possibly be considered a “classic” music f.ex. two centuries later? Does any style within the metal genre has such a chance?

- We hope that black metal will live on through the centuries, yes.

Do you know anything regarding Russia? What is your attitude to the country of mine as well as it’s people? Any Russian bands you’ve heard lately?

- We have heard that Russia has a quite big metal scene, but besides that we actually don`t know much about your country.

Well, I didn’t sleep for too much time (working with the mag and hanging out takes away your health, y’know… :)), therefore the time has come to finish this interview. As always - future plans and finalwords of yours... (sorry, I can’t manage to ask anything more original now as my dark soul is awfully tired).

- For the future… We will work very hard with the promotion of MORIA, and give as many gigs as possible.

MORIA contact -
Email: moriacave@hotmail.com