Dyecrest 07.04.2026 (Finnish)

Finnish melodic metal band Dyecrest return with Defying Gravity, their fifth full-length record, bringing traditional heavy metal, modern power metal and progressive touches into a more focused and collaborative shape. In interview singer Heidi Aaltonen and guitar player Matti Pasanen tell more.

For the band, the period after Aaltonen joined in August 2023 was less about rushing into writing and more about learning how the group should feel onstage and on record in its new form. Both describe a year spent getting to know each other, building live mileage, and listening for what Dyecrest should sound like with a new singer at the center, after the release cycle of Once I Had a Heart album from 2023. Pasanen says the timing was slightly awkward in practical terms, because Aaltonen stepped in just as the previous album was reaching the live venues. That meant learning the set quickly and carrying release shows with a new lineup almost immediately, but the band also sees that stretch as useful groundwork for everything that followed.

The real turn toward a new album came in late 2024, when rehearsals shifted from playing existing material to exchanging riffs, fragments and demos more deliberately. Pasanen describes the process in very physical terms, with ideas tested at the rehearsal room over a few concentrated weekends, while Aaltonen says the transition felt surprisingly natural once the live set had settled into place. Clear difference, both say, is how fully collective Defying Gravity became. Instead of leaning mainly on one or two core writers, the songs were shaped more openly by the whole band, which gave the record a fresher internal balance. Pasanen hears that in the way the material avoids older leftover ideas, while Aaltonen points to the stronger sense that everyone is present in the finished songs.

That also feeds into how they define the album musically. Pasanen does not try to deny that it still sounds like Dyecrest, but he hears a broader emotional range this time, with softer and more delicate passages beside heavier and more winding ones. On the production side, Dyecrest stayed close to what serves the songs instead of chasing novelty for its own sake. Miitri Aaltonen, who had worked with the band before on mixing, handled recording and mixing this time, which Pasanen says gave the whole process a stronger thread from the first drum takes onward. Aaltonen values the same grounded approach for another reason, she likes hearing that real people are playing and singing, rather than everything being polished into something faceless.

Singles tell part of the story of how the album introduces itself. ”Unravel Me” arrived first because it was one of the earliest songs to reach a finished form, and Pasanen describes it as a strong entry point, heavy enough to hit immediately, but still melodic in a way that says something useful about the new lineup. ”Bite the Bullet,” by contrast, came together fast and naturally in the rehearsal room, with the chorus falling into place without much force, and both frame it as an example of what happens when a band lets a song move under its own momentum. These two tracks were followed by ”Forsaken” ahead of the album’s April 24 release. ”Forsaken” also became the record’s clearest collaborative extension beyond the band. Aaltonen knew Tuuli and Katariina through the Jumalatar project and says their appearance grew from an intuitive sense that the song needed a stronger rupture in its vocal character. The result is a more confrontational moment inside the album, with guest growls used not as decoration but as a way to deepen the song’s tension.

Album’s longest piece, ”The Weight of the Trigger,” became the song where process mattered most. Pasanen wanted to write something genuinely extended, not as an indulgence but as a composition with its own dramatic arc, and both describe it as a song that had to be worked through rather than simply stumbled upon. Aaltonen admits that its melodic and lyrical side briefly left her staring at a blank page, and in the end the band relied on patience and trust to get the final shape right.

Looking ahead, the band want to reverse the balance that defined the writing period. They deliberately kept the live schedule lighter while finishing the album, but now both talk about becoming more active again and pushing the new material onto stages.