(In June of this year Edged Circle Productions released a new album by the Swedish heavy metal band Dead Kosmonaut, and that led to the following extensive interview by our Comrade Aleks of the band’s founder and songwriter Mattias Reinholdsson.)
This Swedish heavy metal band, officially formed almost twenty years ago by bassist Mattias Reinholdsson, now boasts not only its third album but also a still-stellar lineup. In addition to Mattias’s Book of Hours buddy Henrik Johansson (drums), Dead Kosmonaut features vocalist Per Hellbutcher (Hellbutcher, Nifelheim), as well as guitarists Fredrik Folkare (Unleashed) and Peter Hallgren (Sorcerer).
Such a lineup could offer listeners a brutally extreme experience, but instead, these gentlemen deliver the same melodic, classic metal. The sound of their new album Retrospectre is heavy and clear, not overly cluttered, and the production, entrusted to Fredrik, was oriented toward the ’80s, although these tracks lack the retro-vibe. Despite the artwork and the title, Dead Kosmonaut are not only alive, but kicking ass, and Mattias is here to tell how it’s possible.
Hi Mattias! How are you? What’s going on at Dead Kosmonaut’s space nowadays?
We are enjoying the incredible reception of our album. I am most humbled by the excellent reviews. Apart from that I have started to go over my demos for a possible new record. Dreaming of cover concepts and song sequencing.
Is it because the positive feedback gave you a necessary push? Or do you have another impact to start writing new songs already? Don’t you want to take a break, step back, and just wait for a while?
Nah, I come up with ideas all the time. I don’t do this as I guess more professional artists and songwriters go about it. I have a full-time job and a family, so to get things done I don’t wait around, but do things as I feel like it and get a few minutes to spare. So I write and collect ideas more or less all the time. That goes for all of us. Same with recording, we don’t exactly go to the Bahamas for a month to record but do it whenever we can find the time. Now I think it’s time to start to plan ahead. So that there is no feeling of rush in the end. Retrospectre took so much time to make and I don’t want the next one to take that long.
There’s a remarkable gap between your albums. The COVID pandemic slowed down everything and Dead Kosmonaut as well — was it the only reason why it took so long to finish Retrospectre?
Yes, initially the pandemic slowed it down. We released the Gravitas album just as the pandemic broke out. So for the first year or so we waited to see if it would go away so we could maybe do some gigs for the album. It dawned on us after a while that it would not, so we decided to get on with a new album. I had a bunch of ideas and I asked around for more material. But progress was slow from the beginning. There was things happening in our personal lives that put things on hold. It’s not for me to talk about. But you know, sometimes life gets in the way.
The very first track “Wake of Aquarius” sounds powerful and life-affirming, and it obtains a kind of folk tune in the opening part. Why did you choose it to represent the entire album? Did you aim to put a kind of message in it?
The style of the song is something I have been trying to achieve for years. A proper Heavy Metal opening song! Slow stuff seems to come a bit easier for me so I challenged myself to write something uptempo. Maybe the opening guitar melody is a bit “folky”? I have not thought about that. It’s drummer Henrik’s lyric that went with the general theme of the album. That of hindsight, memories and how the past affects your life today. I don’t really think in terms of songs representing a whole album. All songs matter and are important as they together make the album a journey from start to finish.
Yes, the opening tune reminds me of a bagpipe! Didn’t you keep it on your mind? By the way, what’s about Aquarius in this song? Is it the same astrological concept about the coming of a new epoch of freedom, humanitarism, or whatever?
I would very much like to hear that melody played on a bagpipe! It would work I guess.
Aquarius symbolises the new start. I did not write the lyric but I think Henrik meant it to work on more levels. On personal levels as well as bigger ones.
Mattias, you aren’t the sole composer in the band, so how did you share your obligations during the creating of Retrospectre? Who wrote what?
Like I said, I reached out to the other guys to see if they had things to bring to the table. Pelle had a whole song, “The Battle is Over”. Fredrik helped out with music for “The Lies”, to the ideas I had. The title track is an old song by Henrik that I was very keen to use. I rewrote the lyrics to make it go with the theme of the album. And as always I asked my friend John Gaffney (Sinister Realm) to help me when I got stuck with the words for “Out of the Shadows Rising”. He did the verses and I did the rest.
I remember that your first album Expect Nothing contained a lot of tracks composed almost a decade before its recording. Did you use some ideas from the far past this time? How long did you work on these new tracks?
The title track is a song more than 20 years old! But like I said, I rewrote the words. That song has been a dear song to me since I first heard it. It felt like a shame it was just lying around for no use. Apart from that the songs come from the time when Gravitas was made, and later of course. The newest song is “Eyes Grow Old”. It was actually done when the album was more or less recorded. We had more songs than we had space for on vinyl. But we needed a shorter song to make the two sides fit the vinyl. So I presented it and everyone seemed to like it.
You have a new guitarist, Peter Hallgren of Sorcerer, in the band, but you got rid of all your doomy influences this time. Didn’t he offer you some ideas in this vein?
Well, I did not “get rid” of all the doomy influences. I write songs out of inspiration most of the time and the doomy stuff that I had did not excite me that much, unfortunately. I have also challenged myself as a songwriter more and more over the years. Trying to create a certain type of music for Dead Kosmonaut. From the very beginning my vision for Dead Kosmonaut was to make a universe that was very broad. Expect Nothing had more slow stuff because of what came out. I never thought of Dead Kosmonaut of being a doom metal band. Rather like Uriah Heep! They had slow and heavy stuff as well as uptempo and everything in between.
Peter came very late in the process so all the songs were done and recordings were being made. We will see for the next one what he has to bring.
Does the fact of having such an amount of experienced musicians from well-known, so to tell, bands help you to promote Dead Kosmonaut? And did you have someone else besides Peter on your mind for this position? Someone from Candlemass or Entombed again?
I guess it’s not a bad thing to have well-known players in the band. Fans of those bands might be interested in checking out Dead Kosmonaut. At the same time I have talked to people who have had very strong ideas about what we would sound like, with for example Pelle from Hellbutcher/Nifelheim, and therefore haven’t checked us out ’cause they thought we would be a black metal band and that Pelle would be screaming and growling in Dead Kosmonaut.
Every single one that has been contributing to Dead Kosmonaut, as permanent members or as guests, are either friends or people I have met over the years. Peter Hallgren is a friend of Fredrik Folkare and when Pär Fransson was out Fredrik asked me if I had anyone in mind. I said no and he suggested Peter. I was well aware of his background in Sorcerer but I had only met him before on a few occasions. We never auditioned him as we knew what he can do and if Fredrik likes someone well enough to suggest him he must be a good bloke at that. The social aspect is very important. Truth is that I have never auditioned anyone for Dead Kosmonaut.
The band was formed in 2014. It’s hard to tell if it’s “old” or “new”, but Dead Kosmonaut has changed, you have changed. How much of the original Dead Kosmonaut is left now? Does the band work for you the same way as it did back then?
That is a very interesting question! Hm… At first it was just a project for myself to do the songs I could not do anywhere else. As I was asking favours from friends, such as Fredrik Folkare or Henrik Johansson, things started to shape up to the band we have today. Even the year of birth is a bit fuzzy. In a way I could argue that the band did not exist until after the release of Expect Nothing as I sort of organized and did that album without much interaction from anyone else. Of course Fredrik Folkare is a key person in all this. But he was more a consultant from the start. I actually was not that keen to bother him with “another band”. It just turned out that way.
So to answer your question. No. It does not work the same for me. Now I ask around for views and opinions. I asked around for ideas for Retrospectre. Then again, I am the main songwriter. I come up with the concepts and generally push things forward. How much of the original Dead Kosmonaut is left, you ask. A lot, I would say. The important thing for me was to create a place where all things heavy metal and hard rock can exist. I don’t want a defined sound or style and that is Dead Kosmonaut. So even if the individual songs might be new to the sound of the band, it’s still within the parameters of what can be Dead Kosmonaut. Does that make sense?
Yep, it seems to be a natural and healthy way to create a band, having some fundament and then raising and decorating it with new ornaments on the way. I have a kind of profane question, as I rarely listen to heavy metal nowadays. What’s about Helloween? Did it influence you in some way? I caught a trace of it in a couple of songs, but maybe it’s just some general classic metal patterns…
As I kid I did listen a fair bit to them but I lost interest in the later part of the nineties. Actually when Kiske left. I think you are pretty spot-on that it more comes down to “general classic Metal patterns”. Their main inspirations were Maiden, Judas, and Accept. Pretty much the same for me.
The artwork looks damn serious, no fun noticed, so to tell. What influenced your choice of this plot? Age? A situation in the world in general?
Well, the general idea behind the lyrics is that of hindsight, memories, and how the past is present. In this case with what we see on the cover is that the old man sees himself as this spacefarer, a kosmonaut. In his eyes it’s his “true” or “best” version of himself. But we as observers can see that he is an old man. He is not going to go into space again. The sleeve has three different versions of this image, as if we are moving away from the scene we see on the front.
The sombre, gloomy look and mood fits the seriousness of the band, I think. We have a bit of “gravitas” to our style (pun intended).
And pun was got! Any environmental influences on the artists, one way or another? Sweden is known as a quite comfortable country to live in — how comfortable is it today indeed? How much of it is in Retrospectre?
Hard for me to compare with other countries. Over the years, I have been able, or rather we have been able, to create a home studio where we can record and create. Very simple but good enough to record drums and “loud” stuff. The level of many musicians (myself not counted!) are very high. But then again, the live scene in Stockholm is not as impressive as people around the world might think. It’s not easy to get gigs and the number of actual scenes are not that many. Places to rehearse at are quite expensive. We are “lucky” in that sense that we have been doing this for so long. Picking up contacts and “know-how”. For younger people wanting to rock it’s not that simple.
On a bigger scale Sweden is open for people doing arts and creative stuff. For many types of art there are well-established institutions and infrastructure. But less so for rock music. It feels like rock music is deemed “commercial” and by that does not need any “help” in creating actual scenes and places to perform. The reality is a bit “cut throat” because of that. At least in Stockholm. It can actually be easier to “rock” in smaller towns as local politicians are more aware there than here.
How many of your old contacts still work regarding gigs’ organization and media?
A few, but getting older, people tend to drift away over the years. It’s very few I know who are fulltime journalists or booking agents. Most of them still have regular jobs to pay the bills. You got to have a certain drive to continue to do this when you are past forty.
“View from the Future” – what inspired you to record a song like that?
The music came from me wanting to write a song like “Night Comes Down” by Judas Priest. For a while I was possessed by it! In the end it did not turn out much like that song, as you can hear. But inspiration works in strange ways. The lyrics are a follow-up to the song “House of Lead”. A person trying to explain why things turned out the way they did. We as observers might not agree with the reasonings of this person as our perspective is from the outside. It’s perhaps my personal favourite on the album.
And mine as well! Retrospectre demonstrates a well-balanced and well-produced sound, it’s both clear in a good sense of the word and absolutely heavy. How much are you satisfied with this result? Did you all take part at the final stages of production or was it only Fredrik Folkare’s duty?
The mix is Fredrik’s of course. The way I write music is that I have production ideas from the very beginning. Fredrik has production ideas for guitar sounds and he worked with Pelle on this recording. For the mix we all listen and chip in ideas. But it’s pretty much his thing.
The “problem” is that a lot of music and especially metal is so over-saturated. Compressed. My sound ideal is that of albums from the very early eighties or late seventies. Of course with how music works today with streaming you simply cannot have sounds like that to the extreme cause. It would sound like you turned the volume down when you listened to Dead Kosmonaut. Fredrik works with a lot of modern productions and of course is very aware of all this. His work is to satisfy me as well as a modern-day listener. It’s tricky but I think his work is excellent. We still record ourselves so it takes a pro to make it work. Fredrik is such a pro! Now when we have done a few recordings I think we don’t actually have to talk that much. He knows what I want and I know what he can do. We do have a sort of sound to Dead Kosmonaut worked out by now.
What are your plans for the rest of 2026? Do you search for opportunities to play the new material live as much as possible? Or are two-three shows enough for you?
We hope to play more gigs and meet our audience. But we all have day jobs and families so it’s tricky to make it work. But we are looking into this for next year. Booking gigs for the remainder of this year is simply too late. But our music is the sort of music made for the stage so that’s what we aim for!
Do you mean that you won’t play live in 2026? How many gigs did you have in 2025?
Probably not. Bad planning to some extent on our behalf and a bit of bad luck. In 2025 we did not do any gigs. Boring, I know, but that’s how it went.
Okay, Mattias, thanks for the interview! It was nice to talk again. Did we skip something important?
I don’t think we skipped anything important. As always, really good questions.
https://edgedcircleproductions.bandcamp.com/album/retrospectre