Interview by Kris Peters
Moldovian metal hybrid Infected Rain are currently riding the wave of global acceptance that has been 16 years in the making.
Since debuting in 2008, Infected Rain have often been undervalued in an industry that too often rewards mediocrity, finding themselves caught in musical purgatory on many levels simply because they are a band almost impossible to pigeonhole or genre classify.
In a world that is becoming increasingly sanitised and regulated, Infected Rain have always dared to be different.
To do things their way.
With a sonic intensity harnessing genres from progressive rock to electronica to nu-metal to out-and-out aggression, Infected Rain have steadfastly refused to conform but more or less forced the world to take notice with their acclaimed 2022 album Ecdysis. It was an album that broke down barriers for the band, opening them up to a new audience that were pounded into submission.
With the recently released successor Time expanding on the creativity and musicianship of its predecessor, Infected Rain are finally earning the respect they so richly deserve, with festival opportunities and high-profile support slots continuing the band's upward trajectory.
HEAVY caught up with vocalist Lena Scissorhands to discuss the new album.
"We have just released our sixth album," she smiled. "After all these years, it is quite a milestone for us. We started in 2008 in a very small country in Eastern Europe."
Time was released just last Friday, so we start by asking Lena how the early reception has been.
"Very good so far," she nodded. "More than we could expect. Great comments, great feedback. People are loving it."
We ask her to take us deeper into the musical side of Time.
"From the musical point of view, I think you want to talk to my musicians more," she handpassed, "because they are more the composers of the instrumental parts. When they are ready, and they have a raw version of a song or a good chunk of an idea of a song, they often send it over so I can start thinking in that direction and see what inspires me and what I could adapt to that melody. To me, it's just when I have the songs my task is to compose melody and upline lyrics I go based on how the instruments make me feel, and that's how I choose what is the direction of the song and what lyrics I'm going to apply. We have something that we introduced for the first time on this album, which is an eight-string guitar. Some of the songs are recorded for eight-string guitar, and we've never had that before. Also, we have a new bass player. Even though she joined the band after the composing stage of the album, she recorded a big part of the songs. We've already been on tour together, and it feels really great."
In the full interview, Lena talks more about the songs on Time, the eclectic nature of the music and making it cohesive, her transition from harsh to clean vocals and how much work is put into her vocals, the underlying theme of the album, pressures associated with following the success of Ecdysis, Infected Rain's upcoming tour with Dragonforce and Amaranthe and more.