IMMINENCE: Sweden Attacks! (2017)

By ANDREW McKAYSMITH

IMMINENCE are four lads from Trelleborg and Malmo in Sweden producing what can now be identified as ‘electro-core’. Having never heard the genre label before, I first encountered it under the Sharptones Records posted official music video for “This Is Goodbye” on You Tube.

Eddie Berg is the band’s lead vocalist. He joins HM all the way from Malmo to discuss the upcoming album, called This is Goodbye among a myriad of other topics.
“Oh, wow. That’s like fermented herring, like, really… I’m not a fan of that stuff. I’m not a fish eater. Yes, don’t try it, that’s my recommendation. Maybe you should start easy with the Fika instead.”
Fika… the civilised sharing of coffee and pastries among friends and families is certainly a much more palatable culinary pursuit when compared to the fearsome reputation of Surstromming. If like me you find yourself engrossed in exploring the far reaches of YouTube, you may have come across one of tens of uploads dedicated to ‘extreme eating’. With all due respect to our friends in Sweden, the fermented herring ahh … delicacy, is somewhere near the top of the greatest trials one will face when attempting a culinary challenge. For a variety of reasons British Airways and Air France have actually banned carriage of the tinned variety … Berg is clearly not a fan either.
The band rehearses in Malmo. The town is often in the media and the target of populist political narratives both domestically and abroad regarding reports of civil unrest and an escalation in violent crime. What’s Berg’s take on things since he is a both a resident and citizen?
“To be completely honest, I’m not so politically involved. I don’t follow the mainstream media so much, I have no idea what is being reported, for example in Australia. But, I am aware that the violence has escalated in Malmo over the last few years. We have been rehearsing in the centre of Malmo for four of five years now. We never felt unsafe or threatened in any way during these years. I think it’s … you know how it goes, that the media likes to report one image. I think there’s some unnecessary fears about it, either way. I think most of the violence is actually gang related. And when you look at all the big cities, you always have certain parts of the city which are prone to more criminal activities.”
Back to the music…
“Maybe I have to go back to our roots a little bit, because Sweden is also the home of melodic death metal such as In Flames.”
Berg is responding to my question into the bands choice of EDM-infused metalcore as their weapon of aural assault when Sweden is typically better known for producing black metal bands such as the mighty Watain, Dissection, Marduk.
“In Flames is our biggest band. I think me and Harald (Barrett), as we are the main songwriters for the band, we were growing up listening to In Flames. Back in 2010, that’s the reason why we started Imminence was to play that kind of music. And in that time I was also a big fan of new emo-metal era of the early 2000s. Actually, the first album that I was able to buy for myself with my own money was Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory (’00). I think you can hear a couple of influences from that album.”
How has Berg found managing expectations of the band now that they have obtained success?
“When we were demoing the album, we did that in our rehearsal space and I was just recording the vocals myself, kind of sitting and editing by myself. I got to know myself more, my voice and how it works, what I needed to improve on. That was the biggest challenge. We were recording everything at a later stage with the producer. So, in terms of the writing process I’m talking now, we’re always trying to give ourselves bigger and bigger challenges as we progress the band, try to make the next thing the next biggest thing for us. Of course, the band does have long term goals that we are striving for. I don’t think we ever will be finished. In terms of looking back at how much we did, what we did to come to this point where we are right now, I do believe that we did everything we could to push ourselves as hard as possible. In that way I’m absolutely satisfied.”
Finally, does the band receive any mail from Australian fans?
“Australia is kind of a new market for Imminence. We did not have such a big reach before, a bigger label (Sharptones Records) backing us before. So, with this album and a lot of support from the label, I hope and think we will reach out to more people, even in Australia. We have kind of frequently come back to Germany, I think we did the most shows in Germany. So, you can kind of see the crowd coming back and bigger every time. So, in that way, that’s one of the best places. But, I’m also a big fan of the nature and the food culture of Italy, so that’s one of my personal favourites. I don’t think I have a favourite country to be in. We just love being on the road.”
Imminence release their new album This Is Goodbye on March 31