Heaven Shall Burn took their time with the follow-up to Of Truth And Sacrifice, which reached number 1 in the Official German Album Charts in 2020. Heimat was produced at the band’s own studio, The Dude Ranch, which is run by guitarist Alexander Dietz. Like in the past, Danish producer Tue Madsen took care of the mixing and mastering.
The Thuringians enlisted the renowned artist Eliran Kantor for the artwork, who previously crafted the artwork for Of Truth And Sacrifice. The centerpiece of the impressive triptych is a rearing stag — in its roaring variant a classic motif of wildlife painting, the epitome of kitsch and trivial art from the 19th and 20th centuries and interpreted by some as a symbol of patriarchy and capitalist competition, but here placed as a vital allegory of resistance amid an apocalyptic scene.
Guitarist Maik Weichert tells us the band’s influences and essentials.
5 SONGS THAT INFLUENCED HEIMAT, THE LATEST ALBUM FROM HEAVEN SHALL BURN:
Insomnium: “While We Sleep”
Insomnium is one of my absolute favorite bands, and I think you can hear that especially clearly in our more solemn, melodic songs. This mixture of melancholy and melodic drive, like in this song, always accompanies me in my songwriting.
In Flames: “Only for the Weak”
When we tackle songs that are supposed to be ideal for the live situation, where people jump and scream along, we basically have that huge In Flames hit in our heads with every record. The mixture of rhythm guitars and sequencer melody is just perfect.
Carl Orff: “O Fortuna”
For the choral passages on the record, we were heavily influenced by this masterpiece. It is pure heavy metal, written 90 years ago!
Sven Helbig: “Abendglühen”
The melancholy and delicate complexity of this choral piece was also a huge influence for the choral arrangements on Heimat, especially in the calmer parts and for the string compositions we created. Sven Helbig is a great composer with such an incredible sense for melodies and harmonics!
Bolt Thrower: “Tank MK1”
It is a HSB tradition to have at least one Bolt Thrower warship song on the record. On Heimat this song is called “Dora” and we were looking into creating the drive that BT evergreen delivers: There is only one direction—Forward!
5 ESSENTIAL TRACKS FROM HEAVEN SHALL BURN:
“Awoken (Intro) / Endzeit”
This song is Heaven Shall Burn in a nutshell. The intro finally established the dimension of classical string music for HSB, it is the calm before the storm. When”Endzeit” starts, the song really grabs you by the throat. Great sing-alongs, strong melodies and one riff really flows into the next one without losing energy. To me still our greatest hit.
“Voice of The Voiceless”
This is a song that has great meaning for us, as it deals with one of our core themes, namely animal rights. Every time we write new lyrics about this theme, it is in some way a reference to this song´s lyrics. It’s an integral part of our live set.
“Numbing the Pain”
We have a category of songs that are more solemn, epic and very melodic. This song is still the model for that. For example, "A Silent Guard" from the new album has some of those vibes.
“Counterweight”
Bolt Thrower all the way. Since we wrote this song, there is a Bolt Thrower warship-song on every HSB record.
“Combat”
We’ve been using techno beats in some songs and we were always interested in integrating electronic music into our song. The blend of pumping techno-bassdrums and Death/Black metal riffing is something we always had in mind and tried to bring together.
