The title "Curse Of The Red River" is a metaphor for the insanity of human race. Religions, addictions and overall madness. It could also be related to the stream of hate and death, the river of Styx. Mainly it represents the inherited lunacy, which we all share in the way or another. Barren Earth is a death metal band after all so we sing about dark and depressive things (death, depression, madness) as it serves the music best way. It would be quite odd to sing about butterflies or flowers on a band like this! I think we’ll stay within this atmosphere and go to even more bizarre topics! Just like Autopsy, ha ha!

Today almost all of us are writing songs but it doesn’t matter who brings in the song as I see our strong point is in arranging the songs as a team. Olli-Pekka writes most of the material but also Kasper, Janne and myself will bring the material to rehearsals. Sami is very good at arranging vocal lines and plays all guitar solos. More and more we work as a team and that’s why we sound like we are. Obviously our intentions were to do something very original and keep this far away from the other bands’styles. The basic idea was to honour the older death/doom bands like Autopsy and Paradise Lost altogether with King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator and Pink Floyd just to name a few common influences within the band members. Also most of us have been playing with some other BE members before in different bands and projects so we knew our way to work around ideas and how to write music easily.

Travis Smith is one of the best modern record cover artists who does everything from the photos. We wanted to have a river scene through the whole booklet. And the graveyard to honour the death metal scene but to do it in slightly different colours. We didn’t want the night scene but more like a evening dusk or dawn in the morning. The red river symbolizes the river of Styx, the madness of mankind and the natural mortality where we all end up. In the dirt six feet under. I think the booklet turned out great. No hurry with the album cover as the idea was started even before the album recordings.

Yes I wrote lyrics for 2 songs. It was a new experience for me as I haven’t done that before. So these two are very special for me. “Our Twilight” has an apocalyptic theme, depending on the view it represents the end of mankind or just a broken relationship. “Cold Earth Chamber” tells a dying man’s last wishes how he wants to be buried and forgotten. Each of the writers has their own style and visions but they go perfectly with the music too. It’s hard to pick the special song as they’re all important factors on the whole album as we tried to make the best possible ensemble. Not just a collection of different songs. My personal favorites are the opening song "Curse Of The Red River" and the last one "Deserted Morrows".

This is not sure yet. We’ll do some dates here in Finland a few festival shows like Tuska in Finland and Summer Breeze in Germany have been confirmed already. Hopefully more will come after the album is released.

Thanks for the interview. Check out the album. See you on tour! “The taste of death is upon my lips… I feel something that is not of this earth.” – Mozart.

Barren Earth “Curse Of The Red River” releasedate: 02.04.2010!