Among the many races artists engage in – especially in metal –, aside from speed, technical skills, and volume, there’s the race to know who will be the darkest. Some have tried to attain darkness through sadness, musical violence, or a gory, grim imagery. Even if some artists harbor real sorrow or truly dark thoughts, we can’t help wondering if, in most cases, this darkness may not be a bit superficial.

For Niklas Kvarforth, it was important to underline that darkness can be found or expressed where you least expect it. In light, for instance – or, to put it more musically, in pop, from which Niklas had thought to borrow a few elements to make his project evolve. Instead he chose to take it down a more metal path, but not the one you’d expect: despite indications to the contrary, the man is attached to the music of the 80s and 90s, and to the way it was made and listened it. Those to whom going to a record store and discovering an album by going through the booklet is an important ritual will recognize themselves. For him, metal is all about heavy in its most traditional definition.

During the interview, Niklas Kvarforth insists on the fact that Shining’s evolution and positions are his – his evolution, his positions. And he wants his message to be heard. Hence the decision to go back to English lyrics, and to translate into English, despite the extreme difficulty of the job, his Swedish lyrics in a book called “When Prozac No Longer Helps”. His message is all about the dark aspects of his life and his hatred towards other human beings. At the end of the interview, Kvarforth points out that Shining is not a way to cry out for help, but a tool to drive these other human beings he despises so much to harm and kill themselves. Needless to say, the words and ideas are his own.

Read the interview…