Pigeon Spins Featuring an Interview with Fjällfolk

Fjällfolk - Trick or Treat

10th full - length studio album from the Swedish metal band Fjällfolk!

Brace yourself for a sonic descent into energic darkness with Trick or Treat, the electrifying new heavy metal album that unleashes nine relentless tracks—each a tribute to a different evil entity from myth, legend, and nightmare.

Demons, witches, vampires, and ancient gods of chaos—each track channels the raw power of these beings into blistering riffs, thunderous drums, and vocals that roar like the underworld itself.

Every song is a gamble between torment and ecstasy. One moment you're headbanging to the fury of a banshee's scream, the next you're caught in the seductive spell of a siren's lament. It's Halloween every day—only louder, darker, and far more dangerous.

Patrik Byström is a writer, composer and multi-instrumentalists. He produces music in several different projects like Zimzalabim (reggae, roots reggae, rock reggae), Zionessa (roots reggae, lovers rock), Fjällfolk (heavy metal, power metal, progressive metal, core metal, metal punk), Suburbia Punks (punk rock, pop punk, skate punk), Deltastray (blues, power blues), Smoke of diligence (country, countryballads, folksongs), etc.

Interview with Fjällfolk

(º)> Fjällfolk has always blended intensity with storytelling. How do you balance musical aggression with lyrical depth?

For me, this is like yin and yang. The musical aggression symbolizes the energy and time of physical activity while the narrative depth of the text inspires deeper thoughts and inner fulfillment.

The texts, the story and the storytelling have always been important in my creations, regardless of the art form and project. Good music with bland or pale lyrics, that have been heard thousands of times before, is like a painting with beautiful colors but without clear or appealing motif. In our three instrumental albums “The instrumental sagas 1-3” we instead let the listeners create their own canvas based on the titles of the works and different stages and with only the paint served.

(º)> Can you describe your creative process when writing for a concept album like this

one?

I usually have an initial idea for a theme for the song. For thematic albums like this, where it feels more important than usual to be able to maintain the "red thread", it can sometimes be enough for me to first set the song's title before the lyrics gradually emerge. I write all of my harder music projects with the help of a distorted guitar directly in the studio amps. I find it easier to get inspiration by being able to see pictures of the song's sequence of events that way.

(º)> Each song on the record is said to represent a different evil entity. How did you choose which myths or legends to bring to life?

I wanted to have a reasonable amount of songs on the album, which is usually 9 depending on the length of the tracks. This meant that creatures such as zombies, mummies, dragons, bigfoots, ogres, goblins, etc. unfortunately did not fit into this “package”.

(º)> What sonic or thematic shifts set “Trick or Treat” apart from your earlier releases?

Sonically I wouldn't say it's any different from Fjällfolk's previous releases. However, we've never before had a thematic album where various legendary evil beings come to life with their own dedicated songs. With this album we want to be able to offer the listener an energetic metal Halloween, anytime of the year.

(º)> The Swedish metal scene has a long history of innovation. How does Fjällfolk position itself within that legacy?

All the music I write is made with the intention that I want to listen to it myself and that there is nothing similar out there in the broad noise of music. The fact that Fjällfolk stands out and perhaps doesn't resemble anything else is probably due to my broad musical background, which automatically means that several different music genres come to the fore and are mixed into something new and unique.

(•)> That's all, Folks! Check out Fjällfolk on the Pigeon Spins Playlist