Cult of Luna's founder and guitarist Johannes Persson explains the intriguing story behind the "Eternal Kingdom" album concept:
"There’s a strange story behind the album and how we came up with the title. For the last couple of years we’ve been rehearsing in what is actually an old mental institution about 45 mins outside town - it was a mental institution in the 1920's - and when we cleaned out our rehearsal room we found all these boxes with junk in, that seemed like they had been forgotten for a long time.Everything from medical journals to paintings by patients and things the patients had done. And we also found a journal entitled “Tales from the Eternal Kingdomâ€, complete with pictures and poems and words, that a patient named Holger Nilsson had written at the time"
Johannes continues: "Holger Nilsson we since found out was a guy that was sentenced for his wife’s murder and was incarcerated for life. The notebook shows that it was a really interesting world he was living in – we’re not claiming to be psychiatrists or anything like that and able to make a good diagnosis of his mental state, but it’s clear to us that he was not living in our world. So basically the whole album “Eternal Kingdom†takes us through his disturbed world from his perspective and mind, as recounted in the journal"
"The whole story started off by him blaming her death on this gypsy-like man that he met on the road home to his village, Yttre Ã…kulla."
"It seems like he drowned his wife in the creek just outside of Yttre Åkulla. It was obviously a very tragic event. His wife was in labour having a baby, and he had to run to neighbouring village Bygdeå to get a doctor. On the way to Bygdeå he met this gypsy character, and he asked him to look after his wife whilst he ran to the village for a doctor – he was only away a short time, but when he returned to her, the baby was stillborn and his wife was in really bad shape, upset about losing the child, and she died in the creek shortly afterwards. The gypsy had disappeared."
"Holger believes she was killed by the Näcken. In Old Swedish folk tales there is a creature called the Näcken who it is believed was Satan. The Näcken plays on his fiddle and lures women to their doom, like the sirens in Greek mythology tricking sailors to their death."
"During the night he sees a bright light in the forest and he starts walking towards it, sneaking through the bushes, all around the fire he sees these different animals and animal-hybrids – Kumans (half-man, half-bear). It later turns out that these are the 'evil' animals. They are dancing around faster and faster and faster, and in the middle of the ring he sees the gypsy - as they make eye contact, the gypsy transforms into an owl/man hybrid - this Owlman is known as UgÃn, the Owl King. The Owl starts to scream, which causes the animals to give chase to Holger - so he runs away back to his house."
"The next morning there’s a knock at the door, and he’s very nervous but it’s one of the “good†animals. He gets taken to the good animals that are led by the Capercaillie. They have some secret information. The Capercaillie King tells him about this wood, this forest and the schism between the good and evil animals, and the Owl King UgÃn that governs this whole evil land. The good animals had some information from a spy that will give them an advantage against the evil creatures. The good animals are not fighting creatures, but they get this information that they have a good chance to attack UgÃn. So they all go and fight, but the information is false and they're surrounded and captured, so the story ends up that Holger gets sent to a dungeon in a mountain. Our interpretation is that this dungeon he’s sent to is his view of his incarceration."
Johannes handed in the journal which became civic property, and is expected to be displayed in the Västerbotten museum at some point.
Johannes reflects on the impact the find made on him: "When as a band, you unexpectedly find something like this it’s not a question of IF you’re going to do something about it. It’s an epiphany, it had to be the album concept, though it was very challenging to make the album's music re-tell the story in the journal – not just lyrics, but also the music to match such an intriguing idea and concept."
Eternal Kingdom is released on Earache Records on June 16 2008.
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