Into The Melancholic Darkness with Infirmum

Into The Melancholic Darkness with Infirmum

Infirmum unleash their own imaginative brand of melancholic doomy melodeath metal, penetrating the soul with their dark and intensive reveries.  Walls Of Sorrow is Infirmum latest masterwork, a vastly intriguing auditory adventure now available worldwide through the Inverse Music compound.  Based out of the vibrant Finland metal underground, Infirmum is sure to enrapture metal fanatics all across this dying planet.  Highwire Daze recently caught up with Infirmum creator Timo Solonen to discuss the shadowy entreaties found within Walls Of Sorrows.  Read on…

Introduce yourself, tell me what you do in Infirmum, and how long the band has been together.
Hi, I am Timo and I am the only member at the moment. I play guitars and try to growl as well as I can. Project started January 2019 after I decided to sing in English.

Where is the band based out of and what is the local music scene like there?
I live in the middle of Finland town called Jyväskylä. Here are quite a lot of bands so I could say our local music scene is active. Some are bigger bands and some are smaller like Infirmum.

How did your signing with Inverse Music come about?
I sent email to Jaakko Tarvainen in the summer of 2019 and asked his opinion about my demo versions of the new album. Then later in the autumn when album was recorded we discussed more about details and here we are now. 🙂

Is there any overall story or concept behind the album title Walls Of Sorrow?
I guess you could find that all the songs are somehow dealing with the dark sides of humanity and human nature. It can’t find myself writing lyrics about love or anything like that. I guess it is part of my DNA as a Finn.

Select two songs from Walls Of Sorrow and what inspired the lyrics.
To Darkness was inspired by how human beings become animals. When rumours and lies turn normal citizens into bloodthirsty mindless puppets. How easily can people swallow lies and betray his/ her neighbours to make themselves look better. How easy it is to control through fear and hate.

Wake Me: It is more or less about the current state of life here in Earth. What we see, or more precise what we choose to see. What we want to see and how we deal with it. Are we just so ignorant because we choose to be so or are we just misled? Whose truth we want to follow and so on.

Who did the cover art for Walls Of Sorrow and how much input did you have on it?
Jan “Örkki” Yrlund did cover art. We discussed a few times about cover art and what ideas I had for it. The one evening he sent me a picture of one painting he painted the day before and it was just perfect. Somehow he crawled into my mind and painted something beautiful about what he saw 😉

What could one expect from a live Infirmum show?
I really don’t know. It depends. What kind of bandmates I will find and how they see what kind of live show Infirmum should play. One thing might be sure, there will not be colorful flowers flying through the air and dwarfs dancing around Stonehenge.

If Infirmum could open for any band either now or from the past, who would it be and why?
From the past Death or Bathory. Chuck was genius and I love his work. His vocals were excellent and unique and the songs were just in another level.  Bathory because I guess it would be Bathory’s second gig, if I’m correct. From the Blood Fire Death to Twilight of the Gods era. It was so damn raw and violent but still really beautiful. Quorthon was one of those who showed me the way of the Viking Metal.  And yes, you may find one song in “Walls of Sorrow” when I try to carry the heritage and show my respect to almighty Quorthon.

If I think bands who are touring right now, I guess Amorphis or Swallow the Sun would be bands I would love to tour with.

What were some of the bands or projects you did back in the 90’s and what was your music scene like at that time?
One band was called Mortal Disbelief and we recorded three demoes with 4-track recorder. Drums were programmed with Amiga 🙂 I played bass and “sang”. Mostly I composed the song and we did arrangements together. Guitarist wrote most of the lyrics. It was more trash metal but in the end I started to go more and more to death metal and grindcore type of expressions. We were quite isolated so I really can’t say much about music scene at that time. One of our demoes was reviewed in Soundi-magazine and they thought it was better than average. They misspelled the name of the band and called it Moral Disbelief. Not a bad band name either 😀 My first band was a hardcore band – I played bass and shouted. It was fun.

Are you or any other members involved with any other current projects outside of Infirmum?
Not at the moment, I try to give everything for Infirmum. But if nothing happens I try to find other projects. You know it should be all or nothing if you want to achieve something.

What’s up next for Infirmum?
Well next Friday album is out (February 28th, 2020) and it is time to begin to find bandmates. I don’t want to just sit down and watch TV. There are lots of riffs recorded and I want to compose more songs as soon as possible. They are haunting me so I have to finish them 😀 Of course I want to take Infirmum to the next level and I believe I can’t do it by myself.

Any final words of wisdom?
I believe if you do your best and dream big, there is chance you may get what you want.  But if you fail just try once more. You learn by doing and mistakes are the best way to learn.  In the darkness you may see something beautiful which you can’t see in the daylight.  These things may be worth finding but handle them with care. Thank you for having me, it was a pleasure.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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