THE DEVIL'S MOUTH Vol. 148: a conversation with Colin H. Van Eeckhout (Amenra)

Swedish singer/songwriter Christian Kjellvander is on tour right now, so before we do a full ten rounds with him in a couple of months, we thought we'd check in from the road with the great man - quite literally, as it turned out, as our call caught him driving between shows on an Italian highway. We discussed how the current tour is going, the new trio line-up, the forthcoming album to be recorded soon, and of course still talked a bit about the extraordinary 'Hold Your Love Still' album, which is still very much living inside our hearts.

Two new Amenra EPs just released, a new bassist in the band, the forthcoming full-length album already being written, a beautiful ongoing collaboration with Tonnie Dieleman, a mountain of live shows... Colin sure has a lot going on, so we called our old friend for an update on his many current activities.

The first Young Widows album in eleven years is out now! 'Power Sucker' is a hell of a record that we have been massively rocking out with, so we sat down with frontman Evan Patterson to discuss all about it, like the motivations and thoughts behind it, the relationship between Young Widows and Jaye Jayle, future plans, and of course some cool details on some of the new songs.

Josh Graham is back, and surrounded by some of the finest gentlemen around - like Intronaut’s Sacha Dunable, Generation Of Vipers’ Billy Graves and guitarist Dan Hawkins who played on the last A Storm Of Light record - under the name of Guiltless, he is now ready to unleash this new band's debut full-length. We sat down with the musician and visual artist to talk a bit more not just about this crushing new album and how Guiltless came to be, but also about his other musical and artistic activities.

Singer/songwriter Paula Lombardo and her husband, legendary drummer Dave Lombardo, discuss the soon-to-be-released second album of their deeply emotional dark pop project Venamoris, 'To Cross Or To Burn'.

In terms of Steve Von Till's musical output, this year has been all about Harvestman. The three parts of ‘Triptych’, by far his most ambitious project under that guise, were annouced as set to be released via Neurot Recordings on three of 2024’s full moons – April 23rd’s Pink Moon, July 21st’s Buck Moon, and October 17th’s Hunter Moon. So, in anticipation of the conclusion of the full piece with 'Triptych: Part Three’ coming out in a few days, we sat down with Steve for a great conversation about this endeavour, and we were treated to a full guided tour beyond the veil of this remarkable artist’s creative process.

Mental issues rarely manifest themselves in a visible way to others. In fact, rarely do they “make sense” to an outsider’s perspective, even. How often, for instance, have we all been shocked and surprised when something tragic happens with a public figure because of something related to depression? Even outside of public figures as such, and in other, not art-related professions, in these days of social media exposure, everyone seems even happier and satisfied all the time than usual. No matter how the outside looks, however, a lot of things might be going on. with someone. So it’s important to be honest. To speak out, to share your experiences, so that others might relate and realise they’re not alone, they’re not weird and they’re not broken. That was exactly the starting point for this very honest and very raw conversation with Mlny Parsonz, the amazing frontwoman for Royal Thunder. After two high-profile shows at the prestigious Roadburn Festival, which seemed to highlight the brilliance of their comeback – in every way - record ‘Rebuilding The Mountain’, you would imagine spirits to be high among all band members for a while. In the case of Mlny, half of the crucial core of the band alongside guitarist Josh Weaver, not everything was okay. Expectations, self-worth, dealing with your own shortcomings. We all feel this, and sometimes it’s hard to see the light with all these shadows dancing around us. So what follows is, in Mel’s own words, “an honest interview about imposter syndrome and self worth and self deprecation and finding hope and healing after a severe personal, emotional beat down.” The bassist and singer, who already participated on a couple of The Devil’s Mouth’s features like the Ten Rounds or when we did our 100th episode specials, told us a few weeks ago she did “really want to open up about humility and change and change with time and age in music,” so we naturally gave her all the space and time she needed to do so. Let’s listen to her.

We started these celebrations with a legend of the West Yorkshire doom scene, so how about we close them with... another legend of the West Yorkshire doom scene? Though both Aaron Stainthorpe and Greg Mackintosh hail from the same region and their main bands have often been grouped together, both have also far transcended any genre-specific musical origins with their brilliant careers and greatly helped shape the history of metal along the way. A  punk rocker at heart, Greg showed us that side well when he appeared as  a guest on episode #29 of The Devil's Mouth, and now we called upon him  again to pick one of his own songs. The choice fell on a recent Paradise Lost classic, 'Beneath Broken Earth', and... we'll let him explain the rest. Thank you everyone who has participated in our signaling of episode #100! Normal programme will resume next week as we move on to our season 2 with episode #101.

Colin is a dear old friend, and he  was one of the first to support The Devil's Mouth, way back in episode  #15, it was a huge boost to have an artist of his caliber on the show at  such an early stage. As we celebrate episode #100, we get a lovely  story about how the already iconic 'Silver Needle/Golden Nail' song, the  opener for Amenra's 'Mass IIII' (2008) album, got its title. Neurosis and a  couple of very different drinks are involved. And whaddya know, turns out that there is joy and jokes and friendship behind the gloomy hellscapes that are Amenra songs, too.

We know Royal Thunder are special. We know Mlny is special.If doubts remained, go listen to episode #87, which was one of the most awesome conversations we've ever had on this show. But when we asked her to be a part of these episode #100 celebrations, we honestly didn't know what we were going to get. A reflection about a song, maybe? A cool song, because all Royal Thunder songs are cool. Maybe a funny anecdote, because Mlny is smart and funny. A story few had heard before, at best. Maybe. But then Mlny did that magic thing she does, always, whenever a mic is nearby, in one form or another. She blew us away with  her raw honesty, her capability to dredg up all the feelings we all need to, and take us along for the ride. Starting about one song, and ending about another (let's call them one big song, okay?), Mlny takes us through a deeply personal reflection on empathy, sincerity, relationships, accountability, love and peace. And being better. Thank you, Mel.