Since forming in 2009, Arctic Dreams has crafted a unique sound they call “Arctic Metal” blending heavy metal, classical music, and electronic Gothic elements into an evocative and immersive musical experience. Their debut album, And The Agony Has Started, appeared in 2014

Founder and creative force behind Arctic Dream, Alex Y – Aleksandr Jarvinen – from the band joins us to talk a little bit about the great Canadian Death Metal project Kataklysm and how it influenced him.

For the first time I found out about the existence of this band probably in 2006. At that moment I put together my first more or less serious band Impure Temenos and we played sympho-black-metal. Our then drummer Victor told me about Kataklysm. As far as I remember, he was very fond of the concept of the project itself, its deep lyrics, fast blast beats of triggered drums. And the first thing that impressed me was the melodic riffs, which are not very common in this kind of death metal direction.

VOCAL STYLES

But the project really began to influence me when I started to form my signature vocal style. I can say that the vocalist Maurizio Iacono, along with Felix from Crematory, were the first to influence my low growling style, for which I am
immensely grateful. I dreamed about meeting them in person someday and talk to them a little bit.

Alex picks this joint performance by the two vocalists:

As for the releases that I think are the best, it would be Shadows & Dust (2002) and Serenity In Fire (2004). And it’s not because before or after the guys made worse material, it’s because these two albums were in my youth, in the
formation of my musical taste.

PLAYING LIVE

The first time I saw a live performance of the band was in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 2015, I think. I remember the brightest performance and for some reason I remember the moment when some crazy fan reached the stage and for some reason pulled the guitar cable out of the bass guitar of the bassist. I don’t know why he did it, but I also remember the bass player’s reaction: he shook his head and wagged his finger, like: “Don’t do that!” But he wasn’t really angry with that fan.

Later on I managed to attend live performances after we left Russia. It was a great performance instead of Soilwork in Belgrade, then a great performance at Wacken 2023. The last time was a performance at Hellfest 2024. I was very
surprised to see a mountain of analog amps on the stage. As it turned out Kataklysm either lost their equipment or something else happened in Paris. The situation was not pleasant, to put it mildly, but I think they were helped out by ESP company, fully providing their equipment. And they sounded really different, but still cool!

Here’s the rather grand Frozen Little Beings – is a dramatic and suspenseful story based on the events of 1959, when a group of hiking students died under mysterious circumstances in the mountains of the Northern Urals:

Our thanks to Alex for a very Metal contribution to our Why I Love archive.

Arctic Dream online: Website / Facebook / Instagram / X-Twitter / Youtube

You can read more from our extensive archive of Why I Love pieces from a wide array of artists on an even wider array of subjects, here.

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