(The Swedish band Stillborn trace their roots to 1984, and in June of this year, 40 years later, the original lineup brought forth a new album named Netherworlds. That was cause enough for Comrade Aleks to organize the following interview with the band’s vocalist and bassist Kari Hokkanen. Credit for all the accompanying photos goes to Bosse Melin.)

The Swedish gothic doom band Stillborn turns forty this year, and no matter what anyone says about “gothic doom”, classifying every other album of Paradise Lost, Theatre of Tragedy, or My Dying Bride as part of this genre, it was these Swedes who technically discovered it.

It was Stillborn who, in their debut album Necrospirituals (1989), mixed Black Sabbath riffs, without bringing them to the scale of Candlemass, with horror aesthetics and a deep low voice in the style of Fields of the Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy.

Having recorded three notable full-lengths, Stillborn broke up in 1996, and then they were remembered only in connection with Messiah Marcolin’s attempt to return to the scene under the name Colossus, and also thanks to Paradise Lost, who recorded a cover of Stillborn’s hit “Albino Flogged in Black” as a bonus to One Second. Entombed did the same in 2004, and they didn’t hesitate to make a video for the song.

The song turned out to be so influential that Stillborn themselves have now recorded its sequel, “Albino Flogged in Blue.” Continue reading »