It is a true pleasure to welcome you to this conversation. After six long years of silence since “Novis Orbis Terrarum Ordinis,” Swedish Occult Rock visionaries Year of the Goat return with “Trivia Goddess” — a standalone opus that ventures beyond the conceptual trilogy which defined their early career. Rooted in the dark elegance of 60s and 70s Rock, yet unafraid to challenge myths and reclaim forgotten voices, the album tells stories of women who defied oppression, reshaping history in the face of darkness. Today, we delve into the origins of this work, the creative journey behind it, and the spirit that drives one of the most distinctive forces in the contemporary Dark Rock landscape.
Six years have passed since “Novis Orbis Terrarum Ordinis.” What has the band been involved with during this extended break, and what reignited the spark to come together for this new chapter?
Thomas: Many aspects have played a big role in this 6 year wait. We have had a long and winding road to the goal, but not only boring things but very nice ones too. The pandemic played a big role in it all and the change of band members has been a hard nut to crack. Putting songs together has gone well and has been problem-free, but finding people who
can take their time and dedication is harder, unless you are a big band that can hire people. Then we have been tinkering with film music which has taken its time and has been the positive part of the wait. so check out Finnish movie Heavier Trip, where we got to do the major part of the movie soundtrack.
For those discovering Year of the Goat for the first time, could you share the story behind the band’s formation and the meaning behind your evocative name?
Thomas: “The name popped into my head when I was writing the first songs, Of Darkness and Vermilion Clouds. The lyrics have a darkness that wraps you in a black velvet cloak, seductive and alluring! It is from these pots of hymns and stories that emerged as a calling to name the band Year Of The Goat.“
Pope: In the Chinese calendar the Goat represents gentleness, kindness, and calmness. Other traits are persistence, cooperation and flexibility. I would say these are all traits that can fit the band. There is also the satan of course, the adversary, sometimes presented as a goat, also the concept of the scapegoat from the Yom Kippur ritual, the atonement, one goat is sacrificed and the other is for Azazel, sent with the sins of Israel into the desert. The band name can be a call for redemption of the scapegoat, a “carry your own damn sins and be responsible or just stop being an asshole”, sort of. Ha ha
Your sound is often described as “Occult Rock” deeply rooted in the darker shades of the 60s and 70s. How would you personally define your musical evolution from “Angels Necropolis” to “Trivia Goddess”?
Pope: We never had the idea we would be an “occult rock”-band, it is a label put on us, since our lyrics reflect what people in general consider a darker message, but remember that the name of Lucifer means bringer of light, not the bringer of darkness.
Thomas: It’s not intentional or that it’s occult rock. We were categorized in that category because of our lyrics and symbolism, which is totally ok. We are and always will be the exact opposite of the “holy light”, which advocates lies and deceit! We have always been interested in creating our own side of written mythology. It has been a driving force that has also directed us towards writing concept albums.
Pope: The music has gone from a, I would say, a bold statement by making a kind of harder rock on “Angels’ Necropolis” with less distorted guitars, a cleaner sound and somewhat sparse arrangements, relying on a slight melancholia. Everything is multiplying, we’ve moved towards bigger arrangements, more is happening in the background vocals, more details, distortion is up, emotions are up, the sound is up, we’re slowly moving towards a climactic peak. Like the sun we will expand, die and be a mere shadow of our former selves, a dead star floating through the universe.
Which artists, movements, or even non-musical influences from that golden era continue to shape your songwriting and sonic vision today?
Thomas: “Life itself and what the world has and offers is a fuel for lyrics and music in our case! We see where we are heading because of religion that hungrily devours the flesh of politics ! We have many influences in the band which means that we have our sound, and that we have managed to have the great luck of having members who have contributed to the magical inclusion of input and so on.“
Pope: “It’s really hard to pinpoint a specific band or an artist, specifically since we are all heavy consumers of music from many eras, for me I had an early encounter with Kiss, like so many others. I was drawn towards other things rather soon and the interest accelerated. Rush entered my life early, as well as The Beatles and Jethro Tull, one of my sisters listened a lot to Genesis and that somewhat formed me as well, my other sister listened to Pink Floyd, David Bowie and a lot more, and that formed me too. I explored many different musical styles throughout life and will probably keep doing that. I’m sure the others have similar stories with other bands and artists. It all melts together subconsciously to our sound I think.“
“Trivia Goddess” marks a departure from the conceptual trilogy that defined your first albums. What led you to create a standalone work, and why focus on women’s stories throughout history?
Pope: “Yes, we actually made every other album not being a part of the trilogy so far. The first album is loosely based on John Miltons Paradise Lost, a battle in heaven, but in our version Lucifer and his Angels win and the “Father” is killed. That’s “Angels Necropolis.” After that we took a break from it and let the second part percolate for a while, we made
an album inspired by HP Lovecraft stories “The Unspeakable” inbetween that time. After the second part of the trilogy “Novis Orbis Terrarum Ordinis” we felt a bit tired of doing the structured storyboard based concept albums. We went into the process with no real focus point, we began writing the riffs and instrumental parts of the songs. Most of the songs had no lyrical ideas or anything until pretty much all the instruments were recorded. But of course we couldn’t keep ourselves from slowly working out a theme. A few songs in it all turned into a celebration of women, mothers, sisters and friends, those women who throughout history have been oppressed by patriarchal religions. It was the “story of a girl” Anneliese Michel who died from malnutrition after a series of exorcisms in the seventies. She led us, disguised as Alucarda, onto the path of witch hunts and all the way back to the garden of Eden where Eve is blamed for the fall of man. So, why focus on women’s stories, we had no choice, that’s where the muse led us.“
The album delves into “the most harrowing moments in women’s history,” portraying women rising against “the real structures of evil.” How did you choose the historical narratives, and what was your process in translating them into music?
Pope: “The narratives are both based in historical events, but also in myths and legends like the Bible, since that is where a lot of the evils throughout western history are rooted. It all came to us when we sat down and listened to the music, we talked around what we felt when hearing the finished musical tracks. We consider it somewhat a divinely inspired process.
So this time we didn’t have to translate it into music, we had to translate the music to lyrical themes.“
“The Power of Eve” reframes the biblical figure as a bringer of enlightenment rather than a source of temptation. What drew you to reinterpret such a central myth, and what message do you hope listeners take from it?
Pope: “In the story the God doesn’t want humans to have the knowledge of good and evil, which basically means no morals. The “all knowing” God doesn’t seem to understand that two people who don’t know about good and evil surely wouldn’t understand the concept of “don’t eat from the fucking tree or else”. He tells them they will die on the day they eat from the tree, but the serpent, the only one telling the truth in the story, tells Eve “nah, you won’t die if you eat from that tree”. Eve takes the challenge and calls out the divine lie and is punished for it. The whole story of the woman being a corruptor of men and merely created to be a companion of men, not their own person for their own sake. That is a story that bears all the hallmarks of being written by insecure men, for other insecure men, and not at all by an all knowing God. It’s patriarchal mommy issues bullshit. Ha ha“
“Alucarda” was chosen as the first single. What makes this track the right introduction to the album’s world, and how does it connect to the overarching concept?
Pope: “It was “Alucarda” who led us onto the path when we had lost our way, or rather didn’t quite choose one. Hopefully she can lead the listener into the whole album as well. It is also a rather straightforward song. We have a tendency to open our albums with longer, not as direct songs, so we also felt it could be an idea for the first single to invite a broader spectrum of listeners.“
Tracks like “Witch of the Woods” and “Kiss of a Serpent” reclaim archetypes often demonized in history. How important was it for you to give voice to these misunderstood figures?
Pope: “I’m of the opinion that no witches were ever killed, beheaded, hung or burnt at the stake. Only people were and a majority of them women, if I’m not misinformed. The witch of the woods plays with the thought of a village where women are being mistreated, accused of witchcraft, beaten and sometimes killed. There might have been someone during these witch trials somewhere in the world who wished for an actual witch to actually come to the village and slaughter the oppressors, that never happened, but we wanted it to have happened, so we sent in the witch of the woods on a huge black billy goat to do her stuff. It’s a story of vengeance, or rather the dream of retribution maybe. The serpent is a given, in the garden of Eden the serpent is often mischaracterized as “Satan”, even though read in context it is rather obvious that the idea of a satan, an accuser, that was around when Genesis was written, was never the character in Christian lore and most certainly wouldn’t be the satan, the title not the name, that we find in the old testament. It was a talking snake with legs, an obvious fable. “The Kiss of a Serpent” is also a story of retribution. We play on the Christian mixup of the serpent being Satan, the guy with a proper name, not the title, and how the burnt witches are reborn in Satan, free from the bounds of the opressors.“
You worked with Tom Dalgety at Psalm Studios for mixing, achieving a sound described as “more majestic, epic, and melodic — while also sounding more evil than ever.” How did his approach help realize your vision?
Pope: “We had another guy doing the mix for the album at first, I think we might have been unclear in our relaying of the vision for the sound, the poor guy put a lot of work into it and we were never quite satisfied. We felt like there was no point in beating a dead horse so we sat down for a minute and asked ourselves who we would like to have mix the album. First name that popped up was Tom. So we reached out to him, and he got onboard. The first test mix we got we were sold, he really understood our vision even without us trying to explain it to him. I would say he dared to try things we weren’t used to, like when Thomas figuratively said he wanted the beginning of a chorus to explode more, Tom put a literal explosion underneath the vocals and instrumental tracks, that was lovely, hilarious and turned out great. I think his sense for lifting small details and also giving the mix a crispier sound than we’re used to. I’m going to be perfectly honest, we don’t know half of the things he did, but we loved it.“
Do you have any plans for live performances to support “Trivia Goddess,” and how do you envision bringing such rich, thematic material to the stage?
Jonas: “Yes, we have some Swedish dates coming up in addition to the release and then head out for a tour in October/November along with The Night Eternal. I think we’ll just give it our everything. It’s been such a long time since we were out touring, so we’re very eager to get back on the road.“
Pope: “We are yearning for the day the economics of things can allow us to bring a bigger more majestically theatrical stage set up. For now we try to be as majestic ourselves and fill the shows with the emotions from down deep in the darkest of our heart blood.“
Across your career, is there a particular live moment — whether powerful, strange, or unforgettable — that has stayed with you?
Jonas: “I wasn’t in the band at the moment, but the others have talked about not being allowed to play through guitar amps, but through some weird amp simulator. As if that wasn’t enough the monitors only played the clean signal. No distortion at all. I think that classifies it as the strangest experience. As for being powerful, I think the debut gig in Norrköping was quite powerful. Every gig has its own energy and leaves some sort of mark.“
Pope: “Since Jonas has been coming in and out of the band…he played at the bands first show ever, whilst I didn’t, I was at the one with the amp simulator though, my mind had erased that awful memory. Some sort of self preservation perhaps. Ha ha We can enjoy a “clean sound” on the guitars, but not that clean. Must be a motherlover when you want to play off of the feedback from the amp.“
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for guiding us into the world of “Trivia Goddess” — an album that not only expands Year of the Goat’s sonic horizons but also challenges listeners to confront history’s shadows and question the narratives we inherit. As September 12 approaches and the Goddess rises, we are certain this new chapter will
resonate deeply with fans old and new. The stage is yours: what final words or blessings would you like to leave to those who await her arrival?
Jonas: “Thank you so much for this interview. Good to know that we are also a part of the progressive rock community.
Hope you’ll like the album and that we’ll see you on the road soon.“
Pope: “We hope you will give it a spin, and we hope you will enjoy every nook and cranny of the musical journey as much as we do. Let the Goddess embrace you and free you from all forms of toxic masculinity as we hope she will do for us.
This is a milestone for us, to be interviewed in a prog rock journal, I wouldn’t consider ourselves a pure progressive rock band, but parts of our catalogue would definitely qualify, in my mind. A dear, and very talented, friend, Nad Sylvan, who sings with Steve Hackett these days, looked at me with a slightly surprised look on his face and said something like, “dude, you’re quite proggy as well”. So who am I to argue with that?
Pre-Order the new album “Trivia Goddess” here: https://lnk.to/YearOfTheGoat-TriviaGoddess