If you've made it here, I presume that you are a fan of heavy metal. Our record label, Nuclear Blast, has tried to label us power metal, or even progressive power metal. These labels mean very little to me, personally, since the sole purpose of them seems to be merely a way to connect Hollow to the successes of bands whose music have very little to do with ours. Let it thus suffice to say that we play heavy metal, that we started playing this kind of music inspired by the great bands of the eighties, that we continously have been listening to metal, that we have progressed from our starting point into something else and that we never tried to mimic any other band.
The album Modern Cathedral, which was the first to be released on a major label, came out in January '98. We recorded it around x-mas '96 on a very slim budget and in a small studio. The original purposes of us doing this album was partly to document what we've been up to for a couple of years, partly to arouse the interest of record companies - hopefully also to get us a record contract. In hindsight all this worked out according to plan. The songs are very diverse and belong to different schools of metal. This can be seen as something good if you like diversity. I belive that an album should constitute a whole and am thus not quite satisified with the album. This is however not to say that I don't like the album; quite the contrary, there are some great songs on Modern Cathedral, but I think that a re-recording with a new production could have made this fairly good album really great. The topics of the songs span from pure love songs to angry lamentations where relationships have gone bad. The lyrics deal with personal issues and the individual is always in focus. You should not confuse the I of the lyrics as me. The songs may be based on true stories, but they have mostly been dramatized a bit.
The forthcoming album Architect of the Mind, which will be released in January '99, is a concept album. The plot is shortly that a scientist suffers a great loss when his father dies. He almost goes insane due to his grief. To compensate his loss he creates an artificial intelligence (AI) and this is really when the story begins. The AI becomes aware of itself and starts to make claims on its creator. The scientist is stricken with remorse for what he has done. He has created life and has no way to care for it. The AI is isolated in its own world and has to break out of its prison. The songs of this album are straighter than the ones on Modern Cathedral. Hollow has developed into a more aggressive unity and I think that this is reflected in the new songs. Some of the titles of the Architect of the Mind-album are: Transcending Sorrow, Shadow God, Father and Deified.

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