Terravia emerged from Norway in 2021 with a clear sense of artistic purpose and an ambitious compositional vision that few debut acts manage to articulate with such conviction. Their first full-length, “A New World” — reviewed in these pages — establishes them as one of the most compelling new voices in contemporary Progressive Rock and metal. We reached out to the band to explore the origins of their project, the creative philosophy behind “A New World,” and their place within a broader Progressive landscape that, in Norway and beyond, continues to evolve with remarkable vitality.
The lead guitarist, Anders Danielsen, answers.
Terravia was founded in 2021 — a period of considerable global disruption that reshaped how musicians could collaborate and create. Could you describe the circumstances that brought the band together, and what artistic vision initially united you as an ensemble?
We originally founded Terravia in 2021 as a 4-piece; we were friends who had played together in other projects, mostly studio-projects, many years before that, going all the way back to 2008. We had a common vision of making fun and heavy progressive music, but after writing and recording the single “Crystalized”, we parted ways with our
then keyboardist, drummer, bassist and backing vocalist to pursue a less “modern” sound; we wanted 12 string acoustic guitars, marimba, brass, violins; we wanted to bring back a lot of the things the prog bands did back in the late 70s essentially. So with that goal in mind, we set out to find new band members who shared this vision. And in 2025, we finally had the full line-up! At that point we had started to write some songs, but spent the next year getting the album more or less rewritten, including the ideas and playing of our new members. Now, with “A New World” finally out, we hope people will enjoy this journey we had and the music we’ve created along the way!
The name Terravia carries a certain geographic and philosophical resonance. What does it signify for the band, and how does it reflect your collective identity and musical intentions?
We are very much inspired by Earth and humanity’s impact on it, and the road we all go down together towards a common goal. Sometimes we ask a lot of questions regarding the negative aspects of humans’ effect on our world, other times we focus on our ability to adapt and improve ourselves to work towards a better world. That road, “Terra Via”, is what defines us as humans, both in good and bad ways.
Terravia brings together six musicians, each contributing to a notably rich and layered sound. How do you navigate the compositional and creative dynamics of a six-piece ensemble, and what does that breadth of voices bring to your music that a smaller formation could not?
We are very lucky to have not 1 or 2, but 6, very good songwriters in the band, all bringing a lot of tools into our common workshop that is Terravia. That often means that we need to give each other space to produce different soundscapes; sometimes the bass is the lead instrument, creating an entirely different vibe than when we have 3 guitar parts layered and fills the sonic spectrum with riffs, acoustic guitar strumming and soaring guitar melodies. The challenge lies often in NOT playing all the time, but to give room for every instrument to shine. We think that is what gives us that unique ability to span genres and not be stuck with only a few sounds collectively; we can create so many cool ideas that are not typically found in heavy metal by simply leaning into the diversity we have in the band.
”A New World” draws from a remarkably wide stylistic spectrum — from Classic Progressive Rock architecture to the aggression of Extreme Progressive Metal. Which artists, albums, or broader musical traditions have most fundamentally shaped Terravia‘s sonic language?
That spans from classical music to modern metal, and everything in between. Each of us have very distinct backgrounds in different genres, like our drummer who is a classically trained musician who originally played mostly marimba, and only recently made the switch to focus on the drum kit. Our guitarist Anders is inspired more by Dream Theater and Neal Morse Band, while our other guitarist, Øystein, is much more into Meshuggah and Periphery. Our vocalist, Petter, also draws a lot of inspiration from pop music, like Carly Rae Jepsen and Kate Bush. Those differences make us approach our music from so many different angles that it’s bound to be a mix of everything Progressive music has to offer, and sometimes pushes the boundaries of the genre.
Norway has a profound and distinctive relationship with Progressive Rock, from the classic era through to the present day. How conscious are you of that national lineage, and do you perceive your work as existing in dialogue with it — or deliberately apart from it?
We definitely have a lot of influence from other prog bands from our country; not only the more recent bands like Leprous and Circus Maximus, which we are huge fans of, but also older bands, like the excellent prog-band Popol Ace that was active between 72 and 77. Their lead singer, Jahn Teigen, was probably more known for his performances at Eurovision, but he had a fantastic voice for prog as well! Like you say, there are so many good progressive bands from Norway both in our past and present, and we are both inspired and look up to them.
The album demonstrates a sophisticated command of extended composition, with tracks ranging from six to seventeen minutes. Which Progressive Rock or Metal works have most influenced your understanding of large-scale musical form and thematic development?
There are quite a few, and it has varied a lot between the different songs. The longest song on the album “A New World”, is very much inspired by both Pink Floyd and Dream Theater, some of the riffs and chromatic passages are very similar to the guitar work from John Petrucci on “Octavarium”. We often follow a more “act”-based composition style when we write the longer songs; one could often think of the parts as separate songs that sometimes have verses and
choruses, and other times have a more classical, musical theme-based structure. It can often get confusing when we refer to the different parts in those longer songs; instead of verse 1 and 2 we might have parts promptly named “13/8 prog section” followed by “7/8 chug interlude” or something like that. It can be both chaotic and systematic when we
write, but it’s always an element of just going by gut-feeling and “what does the song need next” when we write.
“A New World” opens with “War!” — a twelve-minute statement that immediately establishes the full range of your dynamic, from extreme metal aggression to expansive Progressive Rock architecture. What was the compositional genesis of that piece, and why did it feel like the right opening statement for the album?
The song “War!” started out as a couple of riffs from guitarist Anders, some drums and bass ideas from our former member Henrik, and it took a long time before we actually got a sense of what the song was supposed to sound like beyond that. Our vocalist, Petter, wrote some beautiful strings and keyboard parts to bring us into a more interesting soundscape, and once we figured out how to blend the heavy guitars, drums and bass with the more melodic and beautiful vocals and keyboards, we knew we were onto something. We wrote a catchy chorus, a couple of verses and pre-choruses, and the outro ending in a longer version of the chorus. We then made multiple failed attempts at writing a cool bridge section, eventually leading to the brass driven section that ended up on the record. That song taught us a lot of lessons in how we write today; start with something simple, a catchy melody or a few chords, and then start to complicate the composition from there. It sees that just makes the music much more enjoyable to listen
to, even when it goes completely crazy.
The album features a remarkable balance between harsh and clean vocal approaches, and between heavy and melodic instrumental passages. How deliberately was that equilibrium calibrated during the compositional and production process?
Anders: That was, and is, a very deliberate part of the writing process for the vocals. We knew already back in 2021 that we wanted a mixture of heavy and melodic, simple and intricate, both instrumentally and in the vocals. We are very lucky to have 4 members that can sing, but the extreme vocals that Øystein, our keyboardist, does are just exactly what we wanted in our music. Combined with Petter’s clean lead vocals, and a lot of backing vocal work from both guitarists and Øystein keyboardist, we have a huge toolboxto make anything we want; from layered vocal harmonies very much inspired by Queen, to the heavier extreme vocals fit for our more riff-driven songs.
“Strive to Endure” stands apart from the surrounding epics — more intimate, centred on the male-female vocal duet, and structurally more concentrated. What role did you envision for that piece within the album’s overall architecture, and how did the collaboration with Tine Sköll Johansen develop?
That song was actually originally written for marimba and a small ensemble by our drummer, Anders! It was brought in as a potential candidate for a ballad on the album, and after some fun orchestration work we made it into the Terravia song you hear on the album. It still has a lot of marimba parts, along with both 12- and 6-string acoustic
guitars and keyboards, not to mention some amazing bass parts by our bassist, Kevin. It was a very different song from the way we usually write, and gave us an exciting challenge of converting the core elements of what Anders wrote into our own parts and making it sound like Terravia. Tine is a good friend of the band, and since we knew she’s a fantastic singer and we wanted a female voice on those verses in Strive, we knew exactly what had to be done. Her parts were recorded at Petter’s home studio, and like most of the recording we did for the album, it turned out to be good enough to record at home. We really didn’t do much recording at an actual studio, only the drums and marimba were recorded outside someone’s basement or living room.
The title-track, “A New World,” extends beyond seventeen minutes and functions as a genuine synthesis of everything the album explores. Was this piece conceived from the outset as the album’s culminating statement, and how did its thematic and structural development unfold?
A New World was actually a song written all the way back in 2017, at least the general structure and melodies. The lyrics for that song was indeed what inspired the theme of the album, it tells the story of a hopeful journey away from our then destroyed home, Earth, towards a new, and hopefully better, world. The song itself was re-orchestrated and recorded by the band, and the original demo is quite far from the final version that is on the album.
“A New World” features a notable ensemble of additional musicians — brass, violin, additional keyboards. How did these collaborations come about, and how did you approach integrating those voices into the compositional fabric without compromising the band’s core identity?
The desire of having certain instruments on some of the songs came about during the writing process; as we started to get more experimental with our sound, we reached out through our network of great musicians both here in Norway and abroad. We were able to realize those ambitions, as we have Rohan Sharma on keyboards on both “A New World” and “Arcane Horizons”, Jørgen Krøger Mathisen on violin on “A New World”, and Ingrid Lauten and Jørgen Simarud Stabell on trumpet and trombone on “War!”. Working with all of them was both enjoyable and effortless, as they all delivered amazing performances!
The album was released independently. What guided that decision, and how has the experience of bringing this record to the world entirely on your own terms shaped your perspective on the relationship between artistic control and broader visibility?
As a relatively new, unknown band, we decided that it was the best solution to release this album ourselves, as it made sense both financially and from a time perspective; we recorded a lot of it at home, and we had the honor of working with Adam Bentley, known from Arch Echo, having him mix and and master the album. Having said that, we are definitely looking to get signed by a label at some point, and with our debut album, we hope to be able to turn some heads and open some new possibilities for the band. Recording and releasing the album ourselves was a very rewarding and teaching experience for us, and even if we do get signed by a label in the future, we aim to keep that same freedom to write and produce the music we want to make, and not make anything major compromise to our vision.
The structural and textural complexity of “A New World” raises an obvious and fascinating question: how do you approach translating this material to the live context? Are there compositional or logistical challenges that the album’s ambition creates for live performance?
We have played the album live quite a few times now, and it has been a big experiment; how close to the album version do we want to be? We are basically developing alternate versions of the songs as we played them live, sometimes improvising new ideas that are not on the recording, or just doing things differently for fun or to create a better live show. But we are definitely not very strict about getting our live performances to sound 100% like the recording, it’s more important to create a good live-experience for the audience and create an energy that resonates with people.
Do you have live dates planned in support of “A New World”? Are there particular territories or contexts — festivals, club circuits, specific venues — where you feel this music would find its most receptive audience?
We have some concrete plans for this spring; we’re playing a release concert here in Trondheim on March 14th, in Larvik on April 11th, and we’re playing our first shows in Oslo in May, first with An Abstract Illusion on May 1st, and again in the National finals of Wacken Metal Battle on May 23rd. It would be a dream come true if we made it all the way to Germany this summer! We are also actively looking for opportunities to book festivals and other gigs abroad!
Have there been live performances or touring experiences to date — however informal — that have already informed how you understand Terravia as a live entity, or shaped how you think about the music in real time with an audience?
Absolutely! I used to play in a power metal band called “Guardians of Time” back in 2018-2021, and the one thing I learned from playing at Bloodstock Festival and many other venues around Norway and abroad, was that audience engagement is key, no matter what genre of music you play. This is something we try to bring into our Live shows with Terravia; we want every single audience member to feel included in the performance, and truly connect with the band and music. Even though we play complex rhythms and odd time signatures, we always want to be as exciting on stage as possible. I think that anyone that has been to one of our shows can agree that we enjoy playing live, and it shows!
The contemporary Progressive Rock and Metal scene is remarkably active globally, yet each national context carries its own character. How would you describe the current state of the progressive scene in Norway — the community, the infrastructure, the audiences — and where do you situate Terravia within it?
There are several exciting, Norwegian bands that are emerging these days, each one with an unique sound that very often is “typical” Norwegian in some way. It could be the scales used in the music, the slight accent in our way of singing in English, or even singing in our mother-tongue, or the choice of instruments used. It goes without saying that a lot of the up and coming Norwegian progressive bands, including Terravia, are heavily inspired by bands from other countries; we’re very much inspired by our neighbours to the east, Opeth or Pain of Salvation to name a few. But there is something distinct about the sounds we choose to create, that I think comes from the folk music and composers we’ve had here over the last few hundred years; Edward Grieg wrote some insane metal riffs before metal was a thing, without even knowing it. “In the hall of the Mountain King” might as well have been written for a 7-string guitar.
“A New World” is a debut of considerable ambition and scope. What directions — compositional, thematic, sonic — do you anticipate exploring as Terravia‘s work continues to evolve?
We are already well underway with both our 2nd and 3rd album, incorporating ideas that didn’t fit in or otherwise didn’t find its way onto “A New World”. The next album will be both catchy and heavy as well, but has more influences from 70s prog, especially Yes and Genesis. We are already excited to get the next album ready, so far it just sounds great, even at the demo-stage.
We would like to extend our sincere gratitude to Terravia for the generosity and thoughtfulness of their responses. “A New World“ is a debut that demands and rewards serious attention, and this conversation has only deepened our appreciation for the craft, vision, and collective intelligence behind it. We look forward to following Terravia‘s journey with close attention — and to hearing what comes next.
Purchase ” A New World” on Bandcamp: https://terravia.bandcamp.com/album/a-new-world-album-2026
Read our Review of “A New World” here: [Review] Terravia – A New World