The opening band on labelmates Decapitated’s recent UK tour, Swedish deathsters Anata have been taking their complex and twisted music beyond the borders of their home country for the very first time. A few minutes before he took the stage for the final date of the tour, we spoke to frontman Fredrik Schalin about his band’s thunderous new album and his feelings about their first overseas jaunt.

This is your first tour of the UK. How has the experience been for you?
“It’s actually the first time we’ve ever played outside Sweden! We’ve been together since 1993 but we’ve never gone on tour before so we were pretty nervous before the first gig. It’s okay, though, because everything has gone really well so far. The show in Nottingham was the best so far. The place was packed and the audience was very enthusiastic. When you get a response like that you lose your fears.”

How come it’s taken so long to play gigs outside of Sweden? “We’ve always had problems with finding good promoters who will get us the right shows or the right tour. Now we’re on Earache everyone is being really helpful and things have started to happen. We only released the album in January and already we’re touring the UK so we're pretty happy with the way things are going so far.”

‘Under A Stone With No Inscription’ is clearly your best
album to date?
“Oh yes, of course. Every band must say that their new album is their best! We’re very satisfied with the music we’re playing at the moment but what we lack is routine and we can only learn that by touring as much as possible. I’ve been working on material for the next album for two years and I already have enough new songs for a whole album. The next one will be even better than ‘Under A Stone with no inscription.”

The new album is a considerable departure from your older stuff:
“Yes that’s true, but we just wrote what felt natural at the time and it just came out this way. When I wrote the early stuff I was much more into the whole Swedish death metal scene and I’d been a huge Morbid Angel fan for many years. We’ve always had melody in our music but in later years we just moved towards a newer style. I just began to listen to other types of music and not just death metal. I really like jazz and I listen to other kinds of rock music too.”

How do you feel about being described as noisecore? “It’s very strange and I don’t think I agree with that description at all. I think there was a reference to noisecore on the promo of the album and people have been comparing us to The Dillinger Escape Plan. I don’t get it. I think I’ve heard one album by them but I don’t think we sound anything like that. I guess people view things differently from the outside but I’m just not that familiar with noisecore.”
You must have to rehearse a lot to sound as tight as

you do on the album?
“Definitely. We rehearse three times a week. I live in the drummer’s apartment at the moment so the two of us rehearse every day. That’s how I wrote most of the album. I work with Conny (Pettersson, Anata drummer) and we get the structure of the songs exactly right. I know how drums are played so I can write stuff with that in mind. When I write a song I like to be able to present a complete package to the band so that there is no room for doubt about how it should sound. We’re very lucky to have Conny playing drums for us because he can play absolutely anything and that gives us a lot of freedom to experiment with rhythms and do things you might not expect from a death metal band. I can write anything I please with him in the band. He’s been with us for 3 years now and the band has never sounded better.”

Are you enjoying playing the new songs live? “It’s amazing. The set is all taken from the new album and it’s by far the best material we’ve ever had to play live. We want to promote this album as much as we can and get as many people in to hear us as possible. This is a great opportunity for us.”