JOACIM CANS On New HAMMERFALL Album: 'This Is Pure, Solid Heavy Metal The Way It's Supposed To Be Played'

HAMMERFALL vocalist Joacim Cans spoke to Roppongi Rocks's Stefan Nilsson about the Swedish metallers' upcoming LP, "Avenge The Fallen", which is due on August 9 via Nuclear Blast Records. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "This is the album number 13. We've been around for quite some time, and I think HAMMERFALL, we stand for something. This is pure, solid heavy metal the way it's supposed to be played. It's as simple as that. At the same time, album 13 takes a lot of hard work to really dig deep into yourself to find the unique stuff that you haven't written before. I always say that [HAMMERFALL guitarist] Oscar [Dronjak] and I could probably write an album in five days with 10 okay songs, but okay is not good enough. Not even good is good enough. It has to be great. So this is a lot of hard work behind this.

"It's really hard to describe an album in a short period of time," he continued. "Musically, every song on this album belongs to the concept of the album. We still record and release albums. Take one song out — you can see that as a brick. The whole album will start to shake a little bit; something will be missing. There's also a concept, I would say, in the way I am thinking or my thought pattern when it came to the lyrics. This album is about freedom and about hope. The freedom, the right to be the person that you wanna be and live the life that you wanna live."

When Nilsson noted that "Avenge The Fallen" does not contain "cheesy" power metal lyrics about "dragons and stuff", Joacim said: "That's because, first of all, we play heavy metal and not power metal. I think it's a very big difference. If you listen to what we do, it is different. If you also read the lyrics… Unfortunately, nowadays people don't really have the lyrics at hand when they listen because it's on either on Spotify or whatever. The lyrics are not really there. So that is a problem.

"The opening track on the first album was 'The Dragon Lies Bleeding'," Cans explained. "But if you get into that song, the word 'dragon' is a metaphor for the enemy. So it's not even a real dragon in there. I always try to stay away from it. I try to describe things, but maybe using words that are familiar to the overall heavy metal listener, but there's always layers in there. You can interpret it in many different ways. So, of course, there are swords in there and sometimes actually a sword is a sword. We just have to live with that. And hammer will always be a hammer."

In a recent interview with Australia's Heavy, Dronjak stated about "Avenge The Fallen": "We've been working on it really hard. I've been living with the songs for — some songs are five years old, too, so I've had them around for a while. I've been living with the material for so long, and we actually recorded in November, December and January as well, a little bit. So it's been done for a while. Now I'm getting anxious to just — I wanna show people what we've done because I'm very proud of the album. I think we've done one of our strongest albums in recent years, in my opinion. Of course, this can vary a lot for everybody else."

He continued: "I'm very happy because of three things. First, all the songs on the album, they serve a purpose, so if you take one away, the whole is gonna collapse in the middle somehow, even if it's one of the the non-single ones, so to speak, the ones that we don't think are the strongest — even the other ones would have an impact if you take them away. And also I think that the production of this album is — and [by] production, I mean the performance as well from us. Because we start with the drums, recording the drums, and then everybody else builds their stuff on top of that. And David [Wallin] came into this so focused and so energetic and his drumming is so powerful that when he was done, everybody was, like, 'Whoa, shit. We've gotta step it up now as well,' 'cause he put the bar up here. So we kept on going and feeding off of that, of course, when we recorded the bass and guitars. And then during these recordings, Fredrik Nordström, the producer, and he was gonna do the mixing at the end as well, he said, 'Oh, shit, guys. I feel pressure now to take it up a level as well now, because you've already reached it.' So for us, the production is… I think when we recorded the previous album, [2022's] 'Hammer Of Dawn', we did a good job with that one too, but it was kind of hard to get the energy because we'd recorded that during the pandemic. So the pandemic had laid a bit of a filter on top. I mean, it's not noticeable when we released that album, but I think if you compare the two, you can feel the difference, 'cause this one is so much more energetic and so much more powerful in every way. And I think also the songs — I'm very happy with the songs this time. I think they are diverse, they are well written.

"Joacim and I write the songs together," Oscar added. "So I do a demo of the song with the instruments and a drum machine. Then whatever vocal melodies I have or a chorus, whatever it is, I send it over to him and then he finishes it. So I'm very happy with my work, and I usually am, 'cause if I'm not happy with it, I don't send it off to somebody else. But what I got back from Joacim this time is better than I think I've ever heard him do songwriting-wise. He gave every part on every song the perfect mix of the lyrics with the melodies that he created. That's part of the reason. 'Cause when I send off my songs, I know I think it's a good song, but I just don't know how good it will be until his stuff comes on top of it, 'cause we write the songs together. So once I got back these songs from him, the ideas, and we had a bit of a back-and-forth with both the music and the vocal melodies and lyrics and stuff, once we were all satisfied, I think we both felt that this is a strong album from start to finish."

When "Avenge The Fallen" was first announced in April, Cans said in a statement: "This is our 13th album. How do you still stay relevant after 13 albums? It's very much like the opening line to the song 'Avenge The Fallen': 'What is the worst, be the one who died, or be the one who survived.' Think about it, because it is a tough question".

He continued: "Do we want to be a band who releases new music just for the sole reason of getting out on the road again or do we want to keep pushing and challenging ourselves? In times where people have less and less attention span, we still think in the form of full-length albums. A few good songs don't make a strong album. A strong album comes from an album full of great songs and that's what we're delivering with 'Avenge The Fallen'."

"Avenge The Fallen" track listing:

01. Avenge The Fallen
02. Burn It Down
03. Capture The Dream
04. Hail To The King
05. Hero To All
06. Hope Springs Eternal
07. Rise Of Evil
08. The End Justifies
09. Time Immemorial

In December 2022, HAMMERFALL, which started its career in 1997 on Nuclear Blast with its debut album "Glory To The Brave", announced that it was returning to the long-running German label.

HAMMERFALL's entire Nuclear Blast catalog, from "Glory To The Brave" to the 2014 album "(r)Evolution" was certified with a diamond award for over 1.5 million worldwide sales.

Following on from "Renegade" (2000),"Crimson Thunder" (2002) and "No Sacrifice, No Victory" (2009),HAMMERFALL's fifth studio album, "Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken" from 2005, became the band's fourth album to go gold in Sweden, while "Crimson Thunder" even went platinum, surpassing 60,000 sales in the group's home country.

In April 2023, HAMMERFALL released a special platinum edition of "Crimson Thunder" with tons of bonus material.

"Hammer Of Dawn" was released in February 2022 via Napalm Records. The LP was produced by Nordström, who handled mixing, mastering, drum recording, and shared the duty of recording guitars and bass with guitarists Pontus Norgren and Oscar Dronjak. Jacob Hansen (VOLBEAT) produced the lead vocals.

Photo credit: Tallee Savage