By now I must have listened at least 20 times to the title track from your second album The White Goddess (both the name of an instrumental on the last track and the title track of the new album) which you have released online ahead of the album, and although it is very clearly the work of Atlantean Kodex it does have a certain quality that separates it from the material on The Golden Bough. Do you feel it is important to have albums distinct from each other rather than re-hashing your own work, even with a musical style as individual and nuanced as yours?

[Manuel Trummer- guitars] Well, to me the most important thing about a new album is that the music on it doesn‘t suck. Quality is the crucial point for us. It doesn‘t really matter to us if it sounds the same or completely different, as long as we can identify with the songs. Having said that, I think it‘s pretty natural for every band to progress from album to album. Maybe not consciously, but you‘ll always have slight changes. An album should always reflect the artist and his current thoughts, values and tastes. People change and so

does the music people play. It‘s the most natural thing, I guess.

What do you think will separate the two albums, how do you think they will compare (musically and lyrically?)

Generally speaking, I think The White Goddess is the consequential successor to The Golden Bough. It appropriates all the elements The Golden Bough was made of, but it also adds something new. For instance there are a lot of classic 1970s heavy rock vibes – not “1970s” like in Occult/Retro Rock, but “1970s” like in Rainbow, Uriah Heep and Deep Purple. People surely will be surprised by a few parts on the album. On the other hand we‘ve been delving even more into the sound of Twilight of the Gods-era Bathory. There‘s some seriously epic shit going on in tracks like “Enthroned in Clouds and Fire”. All in all I think it‘s safe to say that The White Goddess will sound more focused, maybe gloomier and definitely heavier than The Golden Bough. It has a strange air of earnestness to it. While you had some sparks of hope on The Golden Bough now and then, the new album is much more solemn, musically and

also lyrics-wise.

Is the fact you are spending so long on making the album (the Winter 2012/2013 release date is still correct?) a rejection of the norm in Metal where bands release an album (often indistinguishable from the last one) every 18 months to continue feeding the tour cycle for the benefit of their label?

You already named the main reason. We‘re not doing it for anyone but ourselves. There‘s no label to bother us with its demands, there‘s no schedule we need to fulfil. We‘re completely independent. And this gives us the freedom to keep working on the songs until we feel that they‘re 100% perfect. Even if it takes until 2016.

Speaking of touring, Atlantean Kodex by contrast definitely seem to me to be one of these bands who are less into touring and more into playing special one off dates and festivals. Not only that but the variety of festivals where you have fitted into the bills such as Dublin Doom Day, the more Heavy Metal inclined Keep It True and the Epic Metal one-

dayer in Yorkshire last year (Battles In The North) make it difficult to know where to place you musically i.e. Doom Metal, Traditional Metal or Epic Metal. Where do you feel you fit on the spectrum?

We‘re a Heavy Metal band first and foremost. We‘re fuelled by classic Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, but also by Epic Metal and Doom Metal. We‘re definitely not a Doom Metal band though. Epic Heavy Metal is what we use to describe our sound to people who don‘t know us.

If you draw influence from all three who specifically do you see as influences?

We‘re standing on the shoulders of countless titans. Where to start? The main influences on our sound and probably the reason why we formed the band are Ross The Boss-era Manowar and Viking-era Bathory. I guess you can clearly tell this by listening to our stuff. Moreover Solstice (UK) are a huge influence, as are the more epic bands of the NWOBHM and some of the arcane US Metal bands like early Fates Warning and Warlord. Everything put together and topped off with hints of 1970s British Folk Rock and all sorts of traditional Folk music from all over Europe.

Aside from the multifariousness of your influences the variety of shades of emotion in Atlantean Kodex’s music is another thing that sets you apart from most Metal which often sticks to just one emotional extreme. Is it

natural for you to fly between the melancholy of a song like “A Prophet In The Forest” to the more optimistic vibe of “Vesperal Hymn” to the triumphant tone of “The Atlantean Kodex” or was this something intentionally created on the first album?

No, there was no intention behind it. See, the music we‘re creating is reflecting us as persons. And nobody is living only in emotional extremes. No one is just hateful or just cheerful all the time. People are more complex than that. So why should our music be limited to only one emotion. Some songs were written while being nostalgic, some were written while being enthusiastic, another one was written while being enraged about something. That's why 99% of so called “Extreme Metal” simply bores me to death. I understand it‘s about rage, hate and pissing people off, but there‘s gotta be more to life. I see when a frustrated 16-year old teenager is totally into this Black/War/Extreme Metal and “fuck society” thing, but it doesn‘t work for me, being the old cunt that I am. Most of that stuff doesn't do anything for me. All this “Hail Satan” and “Death to mankind” crap. Jeez ... can it get more cliché?

Do you think there is any other Metal bands in the past or currently who have a similar range of emotion as Atlantean Kodex? (To me, Darkest Era are maybe the only bands currently on the same level as yourselves)

Maybe early Manowar had it

all. You had really hateful, gloomy stuff like “Hatred” or “Bridge of Death” and also glorious, epic, righteous material, like “Blood Of My Enemies”, “Battle Hymn” etc. They had melancholic stuff like “Mountains” or “March for Revenge”, but on the other hand some straight-forward good time Rock anthems. They were pretty much perfect from 1981 to 1984.

Almost equally as interesting as the music of The Golden Bough is the creation of your own mythology within the lyrics which you say is a living link to an imagined prehistoric utopia. How much would you equate this yearning for an Atlantis with R.E. Howard’s assertion that “barbarism is the natural state of man”?

Of course there‘s also a level of anti-civilization to it. You can interpret it in an anti-modern way, as a longing for a less complex, confusing and frustrating world, a world not wholly in the grip of cold ratio. But the horrors of World War II, the ratio of the industrialized mass murder should show us, that barbarism and modern civilization are linked pretty closely. Take nuclear power as an example. It‘s probably the peak of civilization's evolution, but in the wrong hands it is the epitome of utter barbarism. We‘re always living on the edge. Despite our super-civilized ways, the barbarian of old is always in us, waiting to break free. It‘s about finding the right balance between fire and fire. That‘s what living in the present age is all about, finding your way between the

Scylla of cold modern ratio and the Charybdis of encumbering spiritual pipe-dreams. I think R.E. Howard was a romanticist as well. His Conan was an idealized figure, a noble savage, the type which never existed. And I think he knew it as clearly as we do, although maybe he wouldn‘t want to believe it.

Howard is mentioned in the thanks list of the album, as is J.R.R. Tolkien who is also given lyric credits on some track. How much have Tolkien, Howard (and others) impacted your lyrics?

Tolkien is clearly the single most important influence on our lyrics. The way he‘s writing about an ancient world slowly coming to an end, with an unbelievable atmosphere of melancholy, is breath-taking. The nostalgia, which permeates his whole work is what inspires us to write songs such as “A Prophet In The Forest” or “Pilgrim”. Especially Tolkien's poems - also the ones not included in his Middle-Earth books - are incredible. Check out “The Sea Bell”, for instance.

As well as sharing the name of The Golden Bough the album also shares the over-arching theme of all European religions originating from the magic and fertility rites of the Neolithic utopia mentioned above as Sir James Georg Frazer’s famed scholarly work. Such an outlook is very different from the usual view of Christianity within European Metal that sees it as a foreign religion that adopted elements of

European paganism in order to become the dominant faith in the continent. As you see your primitive utopia as possibly purely imagined and Frazer’s theory as largely discredited do you accept the latter as being closer the truth?

I know that a lot of people in the Heavy Metal scenes, especially in the Pagan and Black Metal scenes, want to believe in the myth of a once-proud pagan Europe, which has fallen prey to the evil and violent agents of Christianity. Nothing could be farther from the truth if you take a serious look at the historical sources. What a lot of people tend to forget is how Christianity preserved the knowledge of the antique Roman and Greek writers and scientists during the dark ages and thus laid the foundation not only for the Renaissance, but also for the Age of Enlightenment. People often seem to overlook how Christianity built both the physical, political and spiritual infrastructure for modern Europe and how Christian scholars built up Europe anew, after the Roman civilization was laid to waste by the Germanic tribes. People obviously fail to see how Christianity as a common faith united the European rulers against the forces of Islam. If there's one thing to unite us as Europeans it‘s Christianity, not the superstitious rites of a bunch of seafaring farmers living in a fjord, praying to Odin and living on a diet of fish and salted meat until they die of an infected tooth by the age of 37. Like it or not, but you can‘t deny Christianity's historical importance for our

common Western civilization.

In the lyric sheet for the album you also say the mission of the album is to aid the listener to transcend the dreariness of the modern age. Whether real or imagined do you feel modern man is disconnected from his spiritual ancestry?

Not only his spiritual ancestry, but also his ancestry in a more general sense. Can you tell me the names of your great grandparents if I asked you, for example? Globalization and modern technology are disconnecting us from our own cultural identities and from our own traditions. I feel there is a severe lack of interest for one‘s own home region, cultural traditions and history when I look at the younger generation. It all just one big blur. The disorientation is great already, but it will become even greater. It is an age of confusion and false prophets are preying on the many who are in need of guidance.

Do you equate the simplicity and homogeny of the idealised Neolithic utopia with spiritual purity in opposition to the confusion and diversity of modern life?

Hm, I like the diversity of modern life. It‘s a good thing being able to choose. It‘s good to have the freedom to decide for oneself. But with the freedom of choice comes the risk of taking the wrong decisions and losing ones way in the countless possibilities of today. Especially now, when the safety net of cultural traditions is growing thinner and thinner. We tend to be

absorbed by unimportant issues, which are distracting us from what‘s really important and which are disconnecting us from ourselves. If that‘s what

you mean with a loss of spiritual purity, I‘m with you.

Does the lack of political or scholarly motivation with the album mean you think the return to or creation of this Atlantis as being impossible?

Yes. It will never happen. It‘s not the way of mankind to slow down and look back while there‘s still money to be made or a Facebook status left to be updated.

Given the grand themes of your lyrics and music do you feel Atlantean Kodex are better suited to larger stages than small ones? Do you have ambitions for taking your music to bigger and bigger audiences or are you happy with the scale of the “Iron Battalions” so far?

No, quite the opposite. We played in front of 8,000 people once at the Rock Hard festival

and we didn‘t like the performance at all. Our songs are all about atmosphere, and you don‘t have that on an open air stage or a huge arena. We need the intimacy of a small venue, the face-to-face-situation with a crowd going insane, no distance between the band and the audience. That‘s what it‘s all about.

Lastly will the same themes continue into the next album or is there more ideas you want to explore with the band?

I‘ve been thinking a lot aboutthe state Europe is in at the moment. This and ideas of cultural heritage, traditions, faith, mythology etc. definitely will stay a main topic on The White Goddess. Maybe the whole Atlantis metaphor is overdone by now. Things have become bleaker. Quite a few songs are dealing with the downfall of our civilization, with death, and what comes after. Which are the forces that give us strength in the face of certain death? What or who inspires us? Is it maybe even death itself and the knowledge

about our own mortality that inspires us to aim for greatness?

Anything you'd like to add?

Thanks for the interview. See you soon in a club somewhere in Europe.

Atlantean Kodex Discography

-The Hidden Folk/Two Stones Split 7'' with Vestal Claret (2007) on Metal Coven-The Pnakotic Demos MLP (2007) on New Iron Age (re-released 2009 as a double 10'' on Iron Kodex and in 2010 as a MCD on Cruz Del Sur with bonus tracks)-A Prophet In The Forest EP (2008) on Iron Kodex (limited to 10 copies!)-The Annihilation Of Koenigshofen live LP (2009) limited to 89 copies at KIT XII-The Golden Bough DLP/CD (2010) on Iron Kodex/Cruz Del Sur-The Annihilation Of Nürnberg live tape (2010) on A Forja (limited to 300 copies)