Track By Tracks: Shade Of Sorrow - Upon The Fields Of Grief (2024)

1. No Return:

No Return was the first single to release in 2021 and this song is about disappointment and broken heart. When I wrote this particular song, I was mentally in a very dark place, as the lyrics start with ”step into my nightmare, the lowest levels of hell”, I really felt that way. I think the power of this song is the genuine feeling in it, you can really identify with the pain I feel.

2. Blackheart:

Blackheart follows the same theme as No Return, but in a different light and from a different angle. Disappointment has now turned to disgust and hate. Towards the other person but also towards myself. This was one of the most emotional tracks for me to record especially vocals. In the chorus, I growl the lines with tears in my eyes, my heart filled with anger and hate, but also bitterness and sorrow. These feelings in the long term make your heart pitch black. Savage track!

3. Sorrowforger:

Have you ever felt, like there’s some kind of higher power, god of sorrow, that forges the sorrow for humankind to endure? I had this dream years ago, where there was this kind of entity, sorrowforger. It forged unbearable sorrow as a gift for humans. This song incorporates this entity and for me, it’s forging the sorrow out of failed love and anger, out of the darkest corners of cancer- like bitterness that eats you alive. This is Sorrowforger.

4. Gravedigger:

I dig graves. I mean I like graves, not dig them with a shovel, but I really ”dig” those hollow holes in the ground. The title of the song is this twisted wordplay and I’m sure no one else gets it more than I, hah. I have a pretty weird sense of humor. Once again, the main theme and emotion of the song is a failed and flawed man. A man so used to failure that he’s adapted to love the disappointment. The ultimate level of self-hatred and disappointment is when you love her and hate towards you. My heart is a grave, and I dig it.

5. Blame:

Blame me for everything, for I deserve it. I am the epitome of failure, shame, and regret. This is what ”Blame” is all about. As humans, we go through different kinds of states of emotions as we face trauma. I tried to bring this rollercoaster of emotions alive with this song, it has beauty, extreme melancholy, brutal heaviness, and fierce aggression in it. These layers describe that mental journey through the traumas we face. It’s a bit weird song but definitely one of my favorites.

6. Fabricated Hope:

There is hope, but it’s artificial and Fabricated. I’m very triggered by the ”positive thoughts only”- culture today. If we fabricate positive vibes and hope, we deny the real feelings we might face. This song is about this poor individual, a broken man so desperate that he tries to artificially fabricate hope in order to endure the pain he feels inside. ”Black waters embrace me, black waters erase me” is a perfect definition of that emotion.

7. Meteor:

When a meteor hits, it destroys all and everything. Same as with life, when it really hits you, you’re destroyed, forevermore. This might be my all-time favorite track on this album and there’s a lot of personal strings attached to this song. The writing of this song was really quick, fluid, and natural. The lyrics came straight from the (black) heart in like one hour. That ”saatana” (Finnish curse word, when you’re really pissed!) in the final part of the song is all it takes to describe this song. It also came straight from the heart.

8. For The Pain I Belong:

This song is at least 15 years old, it’s come a long journey and evolved to this state slowly but surely. Very atmospheric song with several different layers in it. The main theme of this song is to accept the fact, that you belong to pain, it owns you and it makes you leave this world with hate. Almost like you’ve been possessed and the pain demon wants you DEAD. Hence the church organ at the end.

9. Fields Of Grief:

War is hell. And this song is all about the war, the cruelty and insanity of it. The geopolitical situation in our world is very inflammated, nuclear war is closer than ever and the end of humanity is near. As I wrote the lyrics, I was so frustrated and angry that I was shaking. In the verse, there is this almost war march-like rhythm and groove, the song itself is simple but brutal. In the end, there are those desperate ”NO” screams. My recording engineer was silent for a moment, shocked and terrified, and after a while, he asked me, what was I thinking doing those vocals…? I said, that I was picturing myself standing in the field holding a burned corpse of my child in my arms. He replied, "okay, it really sounds like that…”

10. Terälehdet:

When the medical industry becomes a god. That’s it pretty much. The shadyness and politics behind the medical industry are disgusting. This theme is something very different on this album and in order to express myself more freely, I decided to go with my own mother language. The Finnish language has this certain kind of rude business and rawness in it, so it fits perfectly with this song.