Thank you very much, and I'm very happy to get a chance to talk to you also!

I have read some raving reviews for "Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer". Are you satisfied with the response of the media to it?

Oh yes, we are definitely satisfied with the response so far, it's been incredibly positive almost everywhere, both from people in general and the media. I keep getting links to all kinds of webzines from all over right now, and they are all almost embarrassingly kind to us... Also, we are just beginning to receive requests for interviews - you are among the very first to contact us! - and I must say I'm quite impressed by some of the questions we get. Some of them are pretty hard to answer, actually, which I think is a good thing. Forces me think, you know.

Now, does this feedback correspond to your own thoughts about the final outcome? In plain words, are you satisfied with this?

Certainly! I don't think we could have hoped for a better response; personally I'm very happy about how the album turned out in the end, especially since the whole process has been something of an adventure for us, and I was hoping that people would give the CD a spin, but this reception is quite frankly more than we could possibly have hoped for. We were aware all along that we would probably not fit into one particular niche, so we were curious to see if this would affect how people see the album. Now I happily register that almost everyone accepts our musical meanderings!

If you were asked to find a drawback in "Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer" what it would be? What it would be the one that you would had to correct in your next album?

Well, there are always some little things you could have done differently, or played better, or chosen not to do, but I don't really want to correct anything that's there now. We wanted an album that was organic and alive, we did not want it to sound all triggered and stiff and, well, computerized, and that means that you can leave in some of the little bleeps and blunders because the give flavour to the music, making it breathe in a different way. There are things that I would love to do differently the next time around, not because I want to correct what we have already done, but because it's the only way to develop and move forward musically.

You were preparing this album for many years and the recording took almost two years. Was this long period dedicated entirely in Twisted Into Form or did you had something else to occupy?

Both yes and no, actually: Except for David, who has Extol more or less as his full time occupation, the rest of us had no other musical projects in between, if that's what you mean, but there were other reasons behind the very long recording period. If you see the dates, which are February 2004 to around April 2006, it seems we spent an eternity in the studio, but this is only half of the truth. We recorded the album in three separate sessions, partly because I moved from Norway to Portugal before we finished and had to come back some months later to record the rest. This was in September 2004, and we actually thought we had finished then, but after signing with Sensory we were asked to write additional material for the CD, which meant going back to scratch for two new songs. By the time we had finished writing - and remember all this was now done in separate countries - and recording the new material and had given it to Neil Kernon for the final mix, we were suddenly in 2006...

Unfortunately I do not have any lyrics in front of me, so I would like to tell us a few words about the themes you treat in "Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer".

The lyrics deal with an array of existential questions, but I think they ultimately can be distilled down to one single feeling - of despair, a sense of hopelessness on behalf of us as human beings... Why do we constantly have to fight, destroy, ruin, lay waste everyone and everything around us? What is in us that keeps us endlessly moving forward from bad to worse, even knowing what we know, seeing what we see? This is the basic theme of the record, I think.

I would like to discuss a little bit about titles and names. What does the title "Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer" mean?

"Then Comes Affliction to Awaken the Dreamer" is a quote from the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). For me this title is a summing up of the whole album: How can we continue to dream about whatever we as individuals will dream about, when we are so constantly reminded of the misery that surrounds us?

"Twisted Into Form" is a peculiar name for a band, not to mention the fact that there is an excellent Bay Area thrash metal album by Forbidden. Why did you gave this name to the band and weren't you afraid of (mental) associations between you and that album?

We spent a long time trying to find a name that we felt would fit our music, and when Erik suggested "Twisted into Form" it just snapped into place right away. We did of course discuss the connection to Forbidden, and we knew it would be commented, but since we all felt that we were pretty far off from Forbidden musically, we assumed it wouldn't be a problem once people got a chance to hear our music. Only time will tell, I guess, but I'm still happy with the name - it is how we make our music, after all...

Can you also tell us a few words about the cover? How is related to the title of the album?

The cover is not directly linked to the title, I suppose; the most obvious connection is to the band name, of course, with all those gnarled and writhing roots and branches so on, but for me the cover also relates, in a more subtle way, to the themes of the album. It's a rather bleak vision, and I think the cover adds to the general atmosphere of "Then Comes Affliction..." in a nice way. The cover itself is made by a Swedish guy named Samuel Durling, who is a good friend of David, and I think he did a fabulous job. We had a bit of trouble getting it printed, though, because of the extra bronze colour - the company that took care of the printing had never done it this way before and wouldn't give us any guaranties about the result. We were pretty nervous there for awhile - but it turned out great!

I would like also to speak about your music. How would you describe it?

I'd say that we are a metal band, pure and simple. That's the basis of everything we do, and it's our common ground as musicians. But since we are a relatively open-minded group of individuals, our music contains traces of all kinds of other styles as well, so you will find elements of thrash, death metal, world music, pop, progressive metal, programmed sequences and technical metal, among other things. We like to experiment, to broaden our musical horizons whenever we can, but it is all built on a foundation of metal - so to speak. Beyond that, I'll leave it to the listeners to decide for themselves.

Do you think that there are points in your music that remind the previous bands you participated?

Certainly. Since I have contributed to and written music and lyrics for all the bands that I've been involved with since I started playing, it is only natural that people can recognize some of me - or some of my style - from the other bands. In fact, it would have made me sad if it you couldn't, since that would mean that I had left no mark on any of the music we produced in Spiral Architect or the other bands I have played in through the years. You can also hear traces of the past from all the other guys in the band, and I think this is how it has to be.

And the usual dilemma? Progressive or technical?

I don't really care one way or the other, to be quite honest - we play metal! But OK, if you want me to elaborate, let me put it this way: There are many ways to be both progressive and technical, and I consider us to be a little bit of both. We are not progressive in the way most of the bands who get the prog. label are, at least not to me - we sound completely different from most of those bands. But I do think our songwriting is quite progressive, in that we like to incorporate very different musical styles and are not worrying about whether or not we can do this or that so as not to stray from any pre-defined concept of how people think metal should sound. To me, being progressive is just about being open - to anything different, anything that might enhance your music.

When it comes to the technicalities of the music, there is a bunch of bands that are more strictly technical than us, while we sometimes try to incorporate the technical aspects into more "loose" and flexible song structures. If there is no room left for emotion, I tend to loose interest - the technical parts are there for the song, not the other way around.

Now that the band has made its first official appearance with "Then Comes Affliction To Awaken The Dreamer", what are the options that you consider for your future?

We haven't really gotten that far yet, actually; right now we are focusing everything on "Then Comes Affliction to Awaken the Dreamer" and we will probably continue doing so for some time still - doing interviews and whatever else we can do to spread the word. But I've already begun writing some new stuff, so somewhere in the not-too-distant future I assume there will be more music from us.

Dear Kaj, thank you very much for the interview. I wish to you and Twisted Into Form all the best.

Thanks a lot! And thank you for letting us talk to you, we really appreciate it. Keep up the good work!