Caelum Sanctimoniae interview
Hi! Hollow Crowns of the False Seraphim revolves around dismantling inherited truths and imposed gods. That’s a dangerous foundation. Was this born from personal disillusionment, or is it purely symbolic warfare?
Hi, and first of all, huge thanks to Iron Backstage for this interview, and for the work you do for smaller bands.
As for the question, the answer is really both. In my own case, I would not necessarily speak directly of personal disillusionment, but rather of observing the world, humanity, and the systems humanity builds for long enough to start seeing recurring patterns. We like to think of ourselves as intelligent beings, yet we keep rebuilding the same hierarchies, the same authorities, and the same truths that we do not dare to question until they begin to collapse under their own weight.
In that sense, Hollow Crowns of the False Seraphim is not so much a declaration of war to me, but more of an act of investigation. It explores what happens when inherited truths, imposed gods, and externally given meanings are stripped away. Symbolic warfare is strongly present on the album, but behind it there is more of a desire to understand than simply a desire to destroy.
From the different corners of that investigation, I have drawn much of the world of Caelum Sanctimoniae, its characters, and its metaphysical structure.
Your work rejects external authority, yet black metal itself is full of rigid dogmas and orthodoxy. Do you see the genre as another belief system that eventually has to be destroyed?
I have to say, this is an excellent question. When I first read through the questions, I really appreciated the fact that we are talking about deeper themes here, rather than only surface-level things.
As for the question itself, I do not see Caelum Sanctimoniae as a strictly purist black metal band or artist. Musically, Caelum draws influence from several different genres, even though the main focus is strongly rooted in northern metal, its different forms, and its different eras from the turn of the 80s and 90s onward.
But of course, the different genres within metal have their own rules and laws, both musically and ideologically. The further we have come into the present day, the more it sometimes feels like even within metal, we are trying to categorize everything more and more tightly: what someone is, what they are allowed to be, and what they are not allowed to be. In that sense, certain genres can almost start to resemble religious sects of their own. If you want to be “true” and not a “poser”, you are expected to follow the rules of that specific sect.
Still, I do not feel like I am trying to destroy black metal, or any other form of metal. Quite the opposite - I respect those roots a great deal. But maybe the leash could be loosened a little sometimes. If music starts serving rules more than its own inner truth, then I think something has turned in the wrong direction.
Finland has a strong melodic black metal lineage - from Dissection’s shadow over the north to Satanic Warmaster and the colder Finnish current. How conscious are you of that lineage when writing?
Finland, as well as our neighbours Norway and Sweden - the latter being where the Dissection you mentioned originates from - have produced a huge number of strong and deeply meaningful metal bands for me. My youth was very much shaped by the sounds of Nordic death, doom, and black metal bands, and I am sure that connections to bands from that era can be found in my own music. Bands such as Impaled Nazarene, Beherit, Amorphis, At the Gates, Immortal, Emperor, Candlemass, and countless others have all been part of the landscape in which my own musical language was formed.
When I was younger, I also had more of a “metal only” mentality, but after my early twenties my musical taste expanded enormously. These days I listen to music from all across the spectrum - if the songs are good, the genre itself does not matter that much to me.
Still, I would say that the identity and melodic language of northern metal are strongly in my blood when it comes to my own work. I do not necessarily think of it as consciously continuing a tradition, but that coldness, melancholy, melodic tension, and certain northern tone are part of the language through which Caelum Sanctimoniae naturally speaks.
You emphasize structure and narrative cohesion over genre purity. Does that mean you see black metal more as a vessel than an identity?
In the case of Caelum, I think that is fair to say. The original idea behind the project, sometime around 2023, was the desire to create a world and a story within it. Back then, the thought was perhaps more strongly that the music would be more purely black metal. But when I finally took the first concrete steps with that idea a couple of years later, in early 2025, I no longer wanted to limit myself musically to only one specific genre.
I did not want to place the same strict boundaries on myself that, in a way, I also write about. Black metal is the beating heart and foundation of Caelum Sanctimoniae, but I do not want it to become a cage. For that reason, Caelum is not pure black metal, and at times it may not necessarily be black metal at all, even though that is where it draws from the most musically. If the story, atmosphere, or song requires a different kind of solution, then it has to be allowed to move in that direction.
The starting point is that, above all, I make music that I still want to listen to myself, even after I have refined it, mixed it, mastered it, and listened to it almost to the point of exhaustion. That is where the musical side of Caelum is born from. At the very least, I can say that I do this honestly, and directly from within myself.
If the philosophy behind the record was stripped away, would the music still stand on its own?
Even though story and philosophy are important in Caelum, the music has to feel right before the listener even knows what the song is about. As I mentioned earlier, I try to compose music that I would want to listen to myself. When that is the starting point, the purpose feels right and the intention is honest.
However, the way I compose songs usually begins with the overall story of the album already outlined. I build the concept, write the story, and think about how that larger whole should be divided into individual songs. So each composition already has some kind of narrative starting point before the actual composing begins.
After that, those ideas gradually develop into complete forms - first into songs, and then into a concept album. Of course, I hope the music also stands on its own, or at the very least brings additional value to the story. Otherwise, maybe I should try continuing as a writer instead.
The idea of the “personal crown” is central to the album. But self-sovereignty often collapses into ego worship. Where do you draw that distinction?
In my view, the crown is not a permission to place yourself above others. The one who carries it also carries responsibility. The greatest difference, I think, lies in the motivation behind the action.
Self-sovereignty is about self-governance - leading your own mind, actions, and choices with humility and honesty. Ego worship, on the other hand, is about raising yourself into the position of a god: placing your own self at the centre of the universe, believing that your personal desires define reality and that the world must bend according to your will.
This is also very much at the heart of one of the album’s themes. Where is the line between the self, the ego, and false divinity? Hollow Crowns does not necessarily offer an easy answer to that, but places both the character and the listener right at the edge of that dangerous boundary.
There’s an interesting contradiction here: you destroy false divinities only to enthrone the self. Isn’t that simply replacing one god with another?
Yes. That is exactly it, and I think the question strikes very precisely at the core of the matter.
Referring also to the previous question: when you break away from something and something else takes its place, the essential question is what kind of thing you build in its place, both for yourself and around yourself. Hollow Crowns does not present the crowning of the self as a simple victory. It asks what happens if a person tears down all false gods, but fails to notice that they are building a new divinity out of themselves in their place.
When I write about gods, in this context gods and divinities do not only mean religious entities to me. They also represent, in a broader sense, selfhood, otherness, authority, power, and the structures upon which human beings build their own reality.
The protagonist, The Pale, seems less like a character and more like an extension of consciousness itself. Is he meant as an archetype, or a fracture of your own internal world?
There are actually several layers to this. Within the world of Caelum Sanctimoniae, The Pale is a physical character, part of the fantasy and mythology around which the story is built. But on the level of the real world, he perhaps represents something closer to an inner voice or an inner direction within a human being.
He can be seen as the part of a person that is not satisfied with ready-made answers, but keeps searching for understanding, even if that search leads into uncomfortable or dangerous places. If there is something of myself in him, it does not mean that The Pale is directly me, but rather that he carries some of the questions, obsessions, and contradictions through which I also look at the world.
And damn, I have to admit, I was quite pale myself when I was younger, so perhaps the name is not entirely accidental.
One-man projects often allow absolute control, but absolute control can also become creative blindness. How do you know when an idea is complete and not just endlessly refined?
At some point, you have to recognize when additional work no longer makes the song better, but only postpones the moment of letting it go. I do seek feedback from people I trust already at the rough and unfinished stages, so I am not completely blind or alone with my own thoughts.
Still, I have to admit that there are moments on the album that, looking back, could perhaps have required more work. But on the other hand, I would be foolish to claim that it is perfect. Perfection does not really exist, especially not on a first album where you are also learning how to shape the entire project.
The first album was a huge learning journey for me, because I did almost everything myself. Apart from the vocal performances and the lyrics for one song - Cerebrum Vermis wrote the lyrics for Of Seraphim and Empty Songs - I handled the compositions, lyrics, mixing, mastering, cover art, logos, and the digital release myself. It was an effort I wanted to make, and I learned an enormous amount from it.
So I am not saying that everything is perfect. But I can say that I am much wiser for the next album.
Cerebrum Vermis handled the vocals on the debut. Why bring in another voice if the project is so deeply personal?
Cerebrum Vermis and I already had a band together back in the 90s, where he was the vocalist, so it felt natural to ask him to be involved in this as well. It was not really a case of bringing a completely outside voice into the project, but rather working with someone with whom I already had a shared musical history, as well as a long-standing friendship.
A person also has to recognize their own weaknesses, and one of mine is extreme vocals. I did some backing growls and screams back in the day, but I have never felt that I was especially strong in that area. When I recorded my very first demo in the 90s, I think the studio guy said I sounded more or less like a cat vomiting, hah. I am not sure it has changed that much since then.
In any case, I knew that Cerebrum would be able to handle the job. I still have a dream that at some point I could also perform the vocal parts myself, but we will see where that path leads.
Cerebrum did an excellent job on the first album, and he deserves huge thanks for that. Honestly, the debut would probably not have happened without him.
Was that separation intentional - the mind writing, another mouth speaking?
Referring to the previous answer, part of it was indeed also the fact that, at least at the moment, I do not feel capable of performing the vocals at the level that Caelum Sanctimoniae demands from me.
On the other hand, this arrangement has also opened up thoughts about how different voices could be used for different characters from a narrative point of view. There are many great examples of this, where multiple voices do not feel like a separate or external solution, but instead serve the story, the perspectives, and the world itself.
So perhaps the separation was not originally a fully calculated conceptual decision, but in hindsight it feels very natural. I built the world and its inner logic - Cerebrum gave it a voice. We will see what the future brings.
The follow-up, At the Ruins of the New Dawn, deals with consequence rather than revelation. Would you say liberation is the easier half of transformation?
Maybe Hollow Crowns should have had a prequel - perhaps there will still be time for that later. Before liberation, there is one difficult stage: the courage to begin. The courage to take that first step and start walking the path toward liberation.
I would also say that there are several levels of liberation. Hollow Crowns perhaps deals with the most extreme level of it, where all external structures, gods, and truths are stripped away. But that is also what eventually leads to the point where the album ends: complete selfhood. But what kind of selfhood? And what comes after that?
At the Ruins of the New Dawn continues the story from that perspective.
Within the album and the world of Caelum Sanctimoniae, I have tried to approach these themes on several different levels. Some of them are deeply personal, some are more universal, and then there is also the level of the fantasy world itself, which is written and can be read as its own story. And when we speak about liberation, its meaning and scale are naturally different for each of us.
Once all false structures are gone, what if what remains is worse?
Well, that is exactly the question.
If you were born into a corridor where every door led forward through human history from its very beginning, after how many doors would you dare to say that surely it cannot get any worse than this?
Hollow Crowns ends with the song “Where Only the Self Remains” and the line “I am the Truth.” It sounds like liberation, but it may also be a sentence. What if beneath the self there is no pure truth to be found, but emptiness and the inability to create anything better?
Black metal historically thrives on destruction, but your work seems interested in what follows after ruin. Do you think the genre spends too much time worshipping collapse without confronting aftermath?
Every genre naturally has its roots somewhere - whether it is in throwing intestines around, blaspheming Christianity, dragons, different mythologies, or trolls. I think that is completely fine if someone wants to stay within tradition. Black metal probably would not work very well with “my baby left me” type lyrics.
But when we talk about destruction, I think it always leaves behind an intriguing question: what comes after? If we keep preaching that everything must be destroyed, then what happens when everything has been destroyed? In a way, I preached about that on the first album myself. But on the second album, it is difficult to continue with pure destruction when everything has already been smashed to pieces. At that point, you have to ask: how do we move forward from here?
In many things, I think it would perhaps be better to spend less energy on simply raging about everything, and more energy on asking how things could actually become better.
Visually, you also create the artwork and logos. Is the aesthetic side equal to the music, or subordinate to it?
The music, the world, and the story are the core of Caelum Sanctimoniae, but I have also tried my best to create the same kind of idea and atmosphere visually. I am not a graphic designer or a visual artist, but I love messing around with Photoshop. I use it constantly for all kinds of more or less unnecessary things, and somewhere along the way I have actually become fairly decent at it. So it felt natural to make use of those skills in this project as well.
I made the album cover and the logo myself, and I will also be creating the cover for the upcoming album. So the visual side is not something completely separate from the music for me, but part of the same world. It gives the listener the first gateway into the atmosphere before a single riff has even been heard.
That said, I do not know how far my Photoshop skills will carry me in the long run. For now, this is how I am doing it.
The new record brings in Heikki Saari on drums. What did you feel was missing from programmed percussion that required human force?
I already had the dream of having real drums, played by a real drummer, on the first album. Even though I do have drums in my studio, I am not at the required level on that instrument to have been able to play them myself in the way I wanted.
So it did not happen for the first album, but I spent a huge amount of time trying to make the programmed drums sound as good and as human as possible. Still, they are not played by a human being. Even if they sounded very close to it, I would still know myself that they are not, and because of that they would not fully match the dream and vision I have for Caelum.
As for Heikki, I have known him for around 20 years, and I consider him one of the strongest metal drummers in Finland. His playing style has always made a huge impression on me. Of course, as everyone knows, Heikki is operating on a completely different level compared to where Caelum currently is, playing in Finntroll, Crownshift, and other bands. But one day I thought, “fuck it, if I do not ask, I will regret it.” So I asked whether he would be willing to smash the drums for the upcoming album - and here we are.
A huge handshake to Heikki through this as well for being willing to take part in something more marginal like this.
And to answer the question more directly, some things are simply damn difficult to program with drums. Now that I have a real drummer carving those parts into shape, the drums become more like the drummer himself - they carry his feel, his movement, and his touch. It also makes it easier for me to realize certain ideas, because I do not have to force everything through programmed patterns and approximations.
If the journey of Hollow Crowns was about tearing down false heavens, is At the Ruins of the New Dawn asking whether man can survive without heaven at all?
Before I answer, I want to thank you once again for this interview. It has been absolutely great to reflect on these themes. These were excellent questions. All the best to Iron Backstage, and let’s stay in touch!
And now, to the question itself:
Actually, not quite. If the first album was about liberation, the upcoming album is about creation. The question is not only whether man can survive without heaven, but whether he can create something better than what he tore down.
I have already referred to this in some of the earlier answers, but this is the perspective from which At the Ruins of the New Dawn continues the story. When the world has been burned empty, and beneath the ash there is only sunless, ice-cold earth, something new still has to be built from it, does it not?