The complete interview with The Halo Effect You can find it in the METAL HAMMER January 2024 issue, available at kiosks or by conveniently ordering the magazine home. It's even easier and cheaper with a subscription!
The moon is already in the sky, and dark figures are roaming the torn-up pavement of Berlin's RAW cultural site. In addition to the usual Friedrichshain socio-tragedy, ghosts, witches, superheroes, zombies and their blood-covered victims can be seen this evening. Dark Tranquility play in the capital on Halloween. Before he takes the stage, Mikael Stanne devotes himself to another project and talks about a work that particularly stands as a ray of hope on this eerie evening.
Resourceful permanent employment
In the past few months there has hardly been a METAL HAMMER issue in which the Swedish musician was not mentioned. Be it the German live premiere of Grand Cadaver, the 13th album of his style-defining core formation Dark Tranquility, the starting signal for the gothic supergroup Cemetery Skyline or various festival appearances in different constellations: it was a busy year for Mikael Stanne. It's no surprise to anyone that The Halo Effect's second album is about to be released – and at the same time it's amazing how the singer manages to juggle all of these projects.
“It’s really a lot”he admits with a sigh, “But that’s my fault. Luckily we have good people behind the scenes who make sure I get on the right flights and perform with the band I'm supposed to.”
Equally important: the mental dividing lines that Mikael draws between the bands. “There is no pressure with The Halo Effect, it was just supposed to be fun from the start.” “There was a certain luxury in starting a band like this during the pandemic”he muses. “We had unlimited time to prepare everything until it was ready for a release. We originally didn't even know if we would ever play concerts.”
“You can’t keep Niclas.”
However, it became clear that Melodic Death Metal fans would immediately jump at the coming together of five former In Flames members with the release of the debut DAYS OF THE LOST in summer 2022. The successes that the quintet has been able to achieve live since then speak for themselves – and almost challenge a follow-up album. “Niclas is constantly writing, you can’t hold him in”Two years later, Mikael gives insights into the creation of the second hit MARCH OF THE UNHEARD. The man in question, Niclas Engelin, a well-known name in the In Flames cosmos as an on-and-off member from the late 1990s, once again cobbled together the songs for The Halo Effect together with Jesper Strömblad, who had been with the genre titans for twenty years.
Thanks to the tireless work of the two guitarists, the framework for a successor was already in place before the first album was released, says the frontman. But the experienced musicians overturned this plan again in the past two years: “When we continued writing after the debut, we liked the new stuff so much that we skipped the songs that were previously intended for a second release and preferred the new ones.”is Mikael's insight.
Security
'Path Of Fierce Resistance', 'The Defiant One' and 'Become Surrender' were released as standalone singles, MARCH OF THE UNHEARD was created fresh again – with a huge advantage over DAYS OF THE LOST: “Niclas and Jesper now know what The Halo Effect stands for”says Mikael. “With the first album we didn’t know exactly where we wanted to go and had to experiment.” That was fun too, but now we have certainty, which strengthens the second album.”
Find out how much Stanne raves about his The Halo Effect colleagues, how he got into metal in his youth and how important his family is to him in the METAL HAMMER January 2024 issue, available at newsstands or by conveniently ordering the magazine home . It's even easier and cheaper with a subscription!
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