Kalle-Rock.de conducted an interview with Jonne Järvelä (vocals, guitar) and Tuomas Rounakari (violin) of Finnish folk metallers KORPIKLAANI on July 14, 2012 at the Masters Of Rock festival in Vizovice, Czech Republic. You can now listen to the chat in the YouTube clip below.

KORPIKLAANI's eighth studio album, "Manala", sold around 600 copies in the United States in its first week of release. The CD landed at position No. 51 on the Top New Artist Albums (Heatseekers) chart, which lists the best-selling albums by new and developing artists, defined as those who have never appeared in the Top 100 of The Billboard 200.

"Manala" was released on August 14 via Nuclear Blast Records. The cover artwork was created by Finnish artist Jan Yrlund.

The limited digipack edition of "Manala" comes with a bonus CD containing the entire album with English lyrics.

KORPIKLAANI vocalist Jonne Järvelä previously stated about the band's new album, "'Manala' is the realm of the dead — the underworld in Finnish mythology. Tuonela, Tuoni, Manala and Mana are used synonymously. This place is best known for its appearance in the Finnish national epic Kalevala, on which many of our new songs are based. In the 16th poem of Kalevala, Väinämöinen, a shamanistic hero travels to Manala to seek for knowledge about the dead. On the journey he meets the ferrywoman (similar to Charon), a girl, Tuonen tytti, or Tuonen piika (Death's maid), who takes him across the river of Tuoni. However, on the isle of Tuoni he is not given the spells he was originally looking for and he barely manages to escape the place. After his return he curses anyone trying to enter the place alive."

"Manala" marks the recording debut of the band's new fiddler, Tuomas Rounakari.

Interview (audio):



Performance footage (August 29 at Club Soda in Montreal, Quebec, Canada):

Photo by Harri Hinkka