With their third album, “Witch Wife In An Alien World” SMOULDER have released a bold, challenging album that hasn’t been met with enthusiasm by all fans. Personally, however, I really like the third album by the band led by frontwoman Sarah Vincent—not despite, but precisely because SMOULDER didn’t play it safe here and created an alternative to the overly polished mainstream metal. So, of course, it was a matter of honor to invite the band back for another interview. Just as they did the last two times, SMOULDER answered my questions in detail about their music, their powerful, politically and socially critical lyrics, communicating trees, and dancing frogs.

Hey Sarah! Congratulations for having your new album out! I´ve been listening to it a lot in the last days and i have to say, it grows with every spin!

Sarah: Thanks! That’s what we were going for – an album that is a grower, not a shower.

When i listened to it for the first time, my initial thought was “What the fuck are they doing here?” followed by “Wow, brave decision, this album will definitively not please everyone”. I guess that was what you were going for?

Sarah: Ha! Well, I don’t think it’s an artists job to please everyone, so yes. Art is supposed to challenge you, make you think, and invoke a strong reaction. Otherwise, it’s just “content.”

We were not interested in conforming to this shift you’re seeing in artwork currently, where people are only giving it a glance, or listening to a 30 second snippet, or watching a two minute trailer (for example), then being explosive online and instantly abandoning it if it doesn’t immediately please them. Artists are consequently shifting how they make art to conform. That’s not what making an album or artwork of any kind should be about – powerful art needs time to land.

To be honest, right now i still like “Violent Creed Of Vengeance” better. This was my album of the year in 2023 and i really love it. I still remember how tracks like “Spellforger” or “Dragonslyers Doom” hit me, when i heard them for the first time. But this is more an argument for “Violent…” and not in any kind against “Witch Wife….”. I guess “Witch Wife in An Alien World” needs more time to grow” and it does grow with every spin until now.

Sarah: That’s fair! Our debut and Violent Creed of Vengeance are more immediate that way. They are glossier and less challenging. We are very happy with what we achieved on both albums, but we have never aimed to repeat ourselves. When we began writing the third album, we discussed it a lot internally. What did we want to do and say next? We knew how we felt about the modern enshitification of art (and hell, everything). We knew we weren’t feeling inspired by most current metal releases. So we set to work writing strange, divergent, angry songs that explored more.

I don’t think it’s an artists job to please everyone – SMOULDER prioritizes artistic integrity over mere fan service

Especially the production is quite raw and “lo fi”, compared to your earlier albums, even more so compared to “modern” metal productions in general. I personally like the approach, even though i did not think of your last albums as “overproduced” in any way.

Adam: This was also a conscious decision, to remove or at least lower some of the effects and keep the focus on the raw performances. Where in the past certain elements were hidden in reverb tails and mirrored by delay, on this record they’re allowed to stand on their own merits. It’s a bit grittier as a result for sure, but in fact some early mixes were much moreso, and it took a bit of experimentation to find the right balance.

The main point, people seem to have their problems with on the new records are your vocals. And while i obviously see the shift from the last albums to your more let´s call it unhinged performance on “Witch Wife In An Alien World”, i think people tend to overreact. I mean, these people may listen to bands like Viking era BATHORY, CIRITH UNGOL, SLOUGH FEG or similar great bands with imperfect, distinct vocals… How do you see these rather strong reactions?

Sarah: I think there’s a few things going on here. Sure, the vocals are a bit different, and due to the production, my vocals sit in a different spot within the instrumentation. I agree, they are more similar to the male-fronted bands you just mentioned, many of whom are highly celebrated by the same people who
are enraged that I could shift into the same direction – despite myself constantly talking about how much I love those bands! That said, I can understand why hearing a different production style and more unhinged vocals is triggering a reaction in fans, because it does sound somewhat different from what they expect, and that’s a fair to be taken aback by it.

However – some of the reactions have been excessively explosive, and very gendered. We’ve seen a few men (most of whom are in bands, because they quite literally linked them to their names on their profiles) be extremely reactionary, following every single link we share to repeat variants of the same complaints. When these men started doing this, it was “TRIGGERED LIBERAL SJW CUCK WHITE KNIGHT” comments; clearly, they were far-right dudes pissed about the subject matter of the lyrics. When they got called out for it, they then switched tactics, made their account histories private, and started attacking me personally, under the guise of “I’m mad this sounds bad/different.”

I want to say that watching that was eye-opening, but quite frankly, it wasn’t remotely eye-opening for me personally. It mirrors the exact type of hyper specific and gendered online attacks that are being leveled almost exclusively at women in increasing volume. What makes it funny and transparent to me is that these dudes are also in bands – ie; we are colleagues. All I can deduce here is that the rage is misplaced, and is about their bands not getting the same level of attention, so they are using a common far-right tactic of manufacturing rage in a thinly veiled attempt to shame me into silence.

And just to be clear here: I really like the vocal performance on “Witch Wife In An Alien World”!

Sarah: Thanks!

The cover artwork is from Ian Miller, who seems mostly be known for his work for the “Warhammer” table top game and “Magic – The Gathering”. I did not know his name even though I must have stumbled across his work, as i did play Warhammer until my early twenties. I was surprised that you did not take another Michael Wheelan artwork but i guess this was also due to your intention to break with conventions and traditions this time?

Sarah: When the album started coming together, and we realised that everything was shifting for u sartistically, from the lyrical content to how we were writing to what we envisioned for the production, we knew it was time to move away from Michael Whelan. We weren’t sure where to go, and I floated the idea of Ian Miller. He’s one of my biggest artistic inspirations, and he makes very surreal, hyper detaile dartwork.

When I reached out to him, the interactions were very interesting and esoteric. I told him what were looking for: some sort of apocalyptic dystopian future swamp hag. He rolled with it, and made our image with little further instruction. That’s what we wanted: an artist with a strong vision to interpret our request. What he created absolutely encompasses what the album is about, with the added bonus of being reminiscent of MORBID ANGEL.

Has it been inspired by a certain song on the album? Can you describe the process of the creation?

Sarah: I would say what we requested is inspired by the entire lyrical theme of the album. I wrote about numerous topics: how the world is being impacted by climate change, future wars emerging from climate change, the horrors of Christian nationalism, the consequences of disconnecting from the land and from
your community, and about the experience and consequence of being a woman who refuses to embrace feminine roles. As for Ian’s artistic process, you would need to ask him, which I’d recommend! He is a very talented, fascinating fellow.

“Witch Wife In An Alien World” is a great album title, but there is no song with the same name on it. In the label info it said that the title is inspired by your residence in Finland. Could you elaborate on that? My first thought was, it could also hit the topic of being an outsider to modern society.

Sarah: To clarify, the album title should not be interpreted as “We moved to Finland and feel like aliens here because we’re disconnected.” That’s not the intention. Indeed, I personally feel more at home here than I ever did in Canada. Instead, the album title speaks to both a personal and a universal
disconnection being experienced. People are increasingly disconnected from each other, from the community, and from the land.

You can see the real time consequences of this via social media, and just simply walking down the street. Everyone’s faces are buried in their phones. The average adult worldwide spends over five hours a day on their cellphone, which is increasingly becoming a manufactured rage machine. As such, when we saw this phrase on the back of an Andre Norton book, it felt correct to name the album the same. We’ve always used sword and sorcery novels as lyrical and visual inspiration, and this phrase, in particular, touched on some many concepts embedded within.

“Water Wars” is the opener and was also the first song you released. It´s one of the songs which may be the farthest off from your previous stuff. It is an intricate, quite hectic song, definitively no easy listening. Bold choice for an opener and first single. What were your main influences on this one?

Sarah: The influences musically on this track are bands like SCANNER, JUDAS PRIEST and VOIVOD. It’s an aggressive, abrasive track, and that reflects the darkness of the lyrical matter.

Out-of-control greed is the root cause of most global problems,- More than ever, SMOULDER is a band with a clear stance!

Fighting for water of course has a way to real place in the reality we live in. Our rivers are drying up, this summer was really worse than ever. The climate crisis is hitting us hard and of course, as always the global south will suffer first and most. On the other hand, tech companies build large ai data centers which consume shitloads of water. This is really late stage capitalism in its ugliest form.

Sarah: Indeed. The more you read about water conflict, and about the impact of AI on water, about how all rain water on earth now contains microplastic, and about how the stock market is now trading in water futures, the more you can see the writing on the wall. It’s infuriating, and that’s why I wrote the lyrics for
“Water Wars.” It’s also why I sang the way I did – angrily, breathlessly, and in some parts, hysterically. This is a crisis. We need to care about it.

Speaking of capitalism fucking us all over…. “Crush the Neophytes” for me reads like a song about the elites squeeze out the lower classes as well as the abuse of religion to justify reactionary/right wing policies. “We’ll pick your bones clean” – Work, keep the system that feeds us running. And if you dare to question the system as it is, we will denounce you. The people in power are not the problem, foreigners, refugees, people that look, talk or live differently are the problem. Women who all of a sudden want to be treated equal are the problem… Man, sometimes i really think this whole mess of a society we live in can only be cleansed with fire… I assume you have similar thoughts?

Sarah: Those are my exact thoughts.

Kevin: Out-of-control greed is the root cause of most global problems, but especially here in the US. So many things here have a profit motive to make people suffer more than what is necessary. Here’s a very recent example: private insurance companies have recently removed GLP-1 medications as a covered prescription, so now people have to pay hundreds of dollars a month for a medication that will improve their health. They did this because health issues related to obesity decreased significantly, and the insurance companies were losing profits because of it. Man, I fucking hate private health insurance.

Musically you mix your classic epic doom sound with some heavy BATHORY riffs and a little blast beat here and there on this one. Are these the greek black metal influences you mentioned? The part starting roughly at 4:30 with your conjuring vocals is one of the most atmospheric parts of the album.

Adam: The blast beats are definitely part of that, but also things like certain palm-muted riffs and harmonizing guitar parts throughout the album have taken some influence from Greek black metal. The melodic bass part in the opening of “Cathedral of the Trees” is another one of those elements. They don’t
necessarily all come together in a way that is straightforwardly black metal for more than a few moments of blasting, but they’re still in there adding spice to the dish.

I did not dive too deep into greek BM yet. I have one album from VARATHRON and “Non Serviam” from ROTTING CHRIST. What really blew me away were “Gods Of War – At War” from MACABRE OMEN and the first two YOTH IRIA albums. The greek BM scene definitively has their very own, distinct sound. Good stuff!

Vincent: Yea there are a ton of hidden gems to explore in the Greek BM scene. I would also recommend ORDER OF THE EBON HAND – The Mystic Path To The Netherworld, and the first two NECROMANTIA albums.

“Empathy´s Wrath” has something of a battle hymn, maybe a call to arms? . Kevin’s drumming is remarkable on this one, his playing sounds really busy, a lot of fills.

Kevin: I appreciate the kind words. It’s always fun when I get to let loose on the drums for a bit. I try to find a little section on every album where I can go a bit crazy on the drums. If guitarists can have a solo on every song, then the drummer should be allowed at least one on an album, right?

Vincent: It is definitely meant to be a call to arms of sorts. I was working a late night shift back in the summer of 2025 and the first line of the song “From the pits to mountains tops, stalking us in our dreams” popped into my head and I immediately knew I had the beginnings of a confrontational, mid paced, “raise your fist and bang your head” type anthem.

The theme of the song is definitely not subtle. I wanted to try and express my anger and frustration about the ever growing lack of basic human empathy in favour of “making the line go up”. I found the idea of Empathy as some sort of physical entity, emerging from the collective minds of subjugated people around the world to be a poetic way to express said frustration.

Ultimately, the music ended up landing somewhere between Manowar and Cauldron Born with th ecombination of a chaotic 5/4 intro riff, a plodding 4/4 middle riff, and a subtle touch of clean guitar under the chorus. I was having trouble finding the right drum patterns for this one (especially the intro riff), and Kevin absolutely nailed it.

“Their Name Lives On” tackles the topic of femicide, right? As a male i can of course never fully understand the horrors, nearly all women have to deal with. But i understand very well that patriarchy has to burn! And that we have to raise our sons better. Femicides every few days, domestic violence still handled as “private matter” by big parts of society and all the other shit. Just some weeks ago we learned about the rape at Cornell University and how it has been dealt with… I can understand every woman that has enough of politely asking for equal rights…

Adam: When Sarah asked me if I had written the song initially with a particular topic or theme in mind, I told her that I’d always wanted to base a song or two on something from Ursula Le Guin’s novels. In particular, there was one chapter of The Left Hand of Darkness which I thought would work well. It’s a self-contained shorter story that is a legend told about the world of the novel, and is about two feuding families. The story goes that two members of the opposing families fall in love and this leads first to more fighting, but eventually to peace.

It’s straightforward enough that the whole tale can fit in the length of a song, and fits the mould of epic metal that bases itself on classic fantasy or sci-fi, so I was convinced it would work well as a starting point. The Left Hand of Darkness also connects to the themes of gender and feminism that SMOULDER often covers, because it takes place on a world where the people don’t experience gender the way we do. The people there are androgynous and only develop sexual characteristics for part of each month; and those characteristics can be male one month and female the next.

So the novel explores how a society without binary gender might be different, and that affects the tale of feuding families as well. There is still violence in the world of Gethen, but its relationship with gender is different. Le Guin uses the pronoun “he” for the inhabitants of Gethen in the novel, but I do wonder if she would use the word “they” if she wrote it today. So the title and theme of “Their Name Lives On” provides a bit of non-binary representation for the album. It’s a queer love song, as well as a violent tale from an alien world.

When it comes to the topic of our own world’s violence against women, as well as queer and transgender people, the song relates to that through the theme of alienation throughout the album. Gender and sexuality are ways people mark groups as an “other” in order to justify controlling or mistreating them, and I hope that when people hear music like this that reflects something of their own experiences they feel a bit less alone.

I really like how you shifted from “fantasy lyrics which also tackle real world topics” to a more direct but still not completely in your face approach. Where a punk or thrash band would sing “capitalism kills the working class”, you go for what you did with “Crush the Neophytes”, a, let´s say more poetic approach? I think the lyrics on “Witch Wife In An Alien World” are the best you did so far!

Sarah: Thank you, I really appreciate that. In an era of mass LLM usage, I do not want the beauty of poetic, metaphorical writing to die. It’s a craft I take very seriously, and as an avid reader, one I deeply value. You can see poeticism and style in the great authors who lyrically inspired the album: from Ursula Le Guin to Eduardo Galeano to Dr. Seuss to Margaret Atwood. Indeed, on “Crush the Neophytes,” I was particularly inspired by Galeano’s The Open Veins of Latin America, and because of it, wrote a very CANDLEMASS style song.

In our last interview, you also talked about how the healthcare system in europe drastically changed your quality of life. For me as a european it is still wild to think that people think about functioning healthcare for everyone as some weird socialistic experiment. I mean, if you really think people should die or suffer from diseases if they cannot pay the treatment themselves, maybe you are not a really decent human beeing…

Adam: Unfortunately many people do think that way, and it’s largely that hyper-individualist way of thinking which has driven several of us in the band to move to Europe. The idea that we are all in this together and should look out for one another is a lot less controversial here.

Pretty much the only things I miss from Canada are family, friends and legal weed. – The three Finns by choice in SMOULDER feel very at home in their new country

You live in Finland for quite a while now. How did your lives change and how are you getting along? What is best in your life in Finland (aside from the healthcare of course!) and what do you miss from Canada?

Adam: Pretty much the only things I miss from Canada are family, friends and legal weed. It’s very peaceful here in Helsinki. There can still be the usual stresses of work and life, but here you can find support if you’re struggling. In addition to healthcare there are good labour protections (things like guaranteed sick days and parental leave).

I am impressed by the cycling and transit infrastructure and in general I find there to be a strong culture of trust. I’m always surprised to see how many people leave their bikes unlocked when they go into a shop, for example. That doesn’t mean theft isn’t a thing, but it’s at least not an obvious everyday concern for many people here.

“Shadow Of The Vulture” is a super catch headbanger, of course written by your hit machine Kevin. He really has a talent for these catchy tunes! I also love the video you did for the song. Shon and Collin sword-guitarring on a rock in the forest really made me crack up. Were the scenes from the chorus shot in your rehearsal space? That looked like quite a family gathering!

Adam: Yeah, that’s our rehearsal space in Helsinki. We got a bunch of friends to come out and have a silly time together. Those sorts of lived experiences, along with live shows, are really more important to me personally than the recorded album. Getting together as a community to have fun making weird art is my antidote to the alienation of the modern world.

Adam got songwriting credits on “Their Name Lives On” and “Cathedral Of The Trees”. Great to see this, as i know from our past interviews, that this was something he was wanting to do for quite a while now.

Adam: Yeah, I’m stoked to have my name next to a few songs in the liner notes this time around! Their Name Lives On is the first time I’ve written the main riffs and structure of something that eventually became a Smoulder song after contributions from everyone else in the band. It is funny in a way that just when I finally learned to write a proper epic doom song, that’s when the band started to explore a faster and harsher style. In the end that was a good thing, though, because we were able to keep some of that feeling in the new album and vary the pacing.

I like especially “Cathedral Of The Trees”, a song about the beauty and power of nature, right? The song has kind of a sacral feeling, at least this is what I feel, when listening to it.

Sarah: This song was mostly written by Collin, and he did an exceptional job. I wrote the lyrics during a ferry ride to and from Estonia to visit a dear friend within a six hour period, and I had this very strange vision in my head. I had recently read an article about the mycorrhizal network, which is similar to the mycelium network that mushrooms share (and I’m an avid mushroom forager). Essentially, trees communicate with each other via the mycorrhizal network.

Given what deforestation and climate change are doing to the earth, I envisioned a story where the trees band together, absorb and replace the souls of those who walk into the forest, then send them back into the world to recruit everyone on earth. I had recently re-read a few different books from my childhood, including The Last Unicorn and The Lorax, after tackling Le Guin’s The Word for World is Forest. The idea of nature getting “revenge.” However, this “revenge” is different, as I can imagine no greater privilege than being one with the natural world.

Collin: Musically my goal for this song was to create something that was winding, melodic, majestic, and ancient sounding. The addition of the Greek black metal parts by Vincent really took it to the next level, and I’m really very happy with Sarah’s lyrics and vocal arrangement. They very much capture the spirit that I was trying to convey with “Cathedral of The Trees”.

“Smouldering Remains” closes the album and is maybe the song that is closest to your older material. A classic epic doom hymn. Is it on purpose, that you always have a long, epic doom song as an album closer?

Kevin: I visited Finland a few years ago to do a songwriting session with Sarah and Vincent, and this song is a combination of previous material we came up with. It was also the first song finished musically, which may explain why it sounds more like our older songs. I don’t think it’s intentional to have an epic doom closer on every album, but it’s never a bad option to end an album with a triumphant finish.

When you released “Times Of Obscene Evil And Wild Daring” you had the claim “Love Metal, Hate Fascism”, with the release of “Violent Creed Of Vengeance” you added “Death to Rapists and Rape Culture” and now we get “Destroy AI”. I couldn´t agree more, especially to the first two and mostly also to the AI part. I think it has its benefits in certain areas and it could really help us achieve great things. But especially generative AI which is used to create so-called AI Art needs to be destroyed!

Kevin: Some kinds of AI can be useful, but I think most of us agree that generative AI is a net negative for society, especially when it’s used to benefit the wealthy over everyone else. I could get behind AI if it was environmentally friendly and paired with a robust welfare program, so people can spend less time working and more time creating art and doing other hobbies. Instead, AI is being used to replace artists so companies don’t have to pay them, as well as replacing other jobs without a safety net. It’s pretty fucked up.

I am surprised and disgusted by the fact that there is a not so small number of people in the metal scene who find it acceptable to use AI for artworks or even songwriting. I mean, it wouldn´t have surprised me in other, more commercial musical genres, which are more background noise for whatever but heavy metal is a fucking subculture that stands for something… How could we accept “art” without an artist?

Collin: I’m 100% in agreement with you there. It is completely unacceptable, and bands that use AI for their creative endeavors aren’t worth even considering. AI has no place in Heavy Metal or art in general (to say nothing of its very negative effect on society as a whole). When one takes the act of actually creating out of art it ceases to be art. Speaking of Heavy Metal in particular it’s really a weak and very disingenuous thing to use AI for any of the creative processes, the struggle is what creates the art!

Of course this is the wet dream of any record label – content to sell without having to deal with those annoying artist… Another point is that AI songs are stealing the already ridiculous small streaming revenues from real artist. And finally the impact of these data centers on our environment… Oh and let´s not forget the chance of the storyline of “Terminator” becoming reality. Yeah, i guess “destroy AI” is an absolute valid request… I am following some artists on social media, so i know, that you can get a great handpainted artwork for some hundred bucks… So the price argument really does not count here… If your music isn’t worth yourself to pay for a real artwork, why should i as a fan even bother?

Sarah: I agree, and see no reason to engage with metal bands who use AI in their art.

Adam: Even if there weren’t so many economic, social, and environmental issues with AI, I would want to automate boring stuff so that I have more time to make art and music, not automate the creation of art so that I can toil more for capitalism! The way some people are using it is just so backwards from whatever might bring actual benefits.

You recently played a gig with three guitarists. Is this a permanent thing now?

Adam: We played OLD GRAVE FEST in Bucharest on the album release day and were joined by our friend Bootleg Henkka, who plays the guest solo in “Noitien Loitsu.” He’s also joined us for a number of past gigs, but has become too busy with HAVUKRUUNU to tour with another band, so this was a one-off for a special occasion. Of course it was great having him with us and the sound with three guitarists was massive, so we all talked about how cool it would be to do it again, but it’s certainly not a permanent thing.

I hope you will be playing more concerts in europe, especially germany next year. I still haven´t seen you live which really is a shame. This would also be a great opportunity for me to get your merch without paying a fortune for shipping, which is getting a bigger pain in the ass more and more each year…

Adam: We’re planning shows in November and February, so keep an eye out for those! And yeah, any time we travel to metal festivals I bring an extra bag for carrying records back with me, it’s a good way to save on shipping for sure.

Speaking of merch… Any chance that you´ll do a second run of the “Spellforger” patches? I have one on my vest but i know several people who would really like to have one, too. Including my daughter ha ha ha. She is eight years old and loves the rainbow hairstyle 😉

Sarah: That’s good to know! We hadn’t actually planned to do another, but all the more reason for me to create another rainbow wizard associated with another song in the future…

A friend of mine sent me pictures from the booklet of the vinyl edition with your layout and artwork. It looks incredible and fits perfectly to your music. Are you also planning some merch like shirts with your artwork? I would love a shirt with the dancing toads from the page with the lyrics of “Smouldering Remains”.

Sarah: Thank you! I’m really happy with the 12-page booklet that comes with the vinyl. I did all the illustrations and all the lyrics, save for the lyrics for “Empathy’s Wrath.” I also designed the metal alphabet that makes up the song titles. We definitely aim to use that artwork in the near future for merch designs, including the dancing frogs, which are a beloved archetype within wood linocut art. It’s been really gratifying artistically to see my own art on SMOULDER merch for all these years, and our guitarist Vincent does an exceptional job with all the designs!

You made it to the end of the interview once again. Thanks for your time, thanks for the awesome, courageous and challenging album that is “Witch Wife In An Alien World” and thank you to be out and loud about all these topics we tackled. Hope to see you on the road finally. Last words are yours!

Adam: Thanks for taking the time to check out our music and for the opportunity to talk a bit about the ideas that went into it. Don´t let the bastards grind you down!