The title of the fifth album from one-man Norwegian black metal band Mork translates to Cathedral, and the concept behind it is over a decade old. “It has to be around 2009 or ’10 when I came up with the idea to do a concept EP,” Mork mastermind Thomas Eriksen tells Apple Music. Instead, Eriksen crammed the entire concept into Katedralen’s closing track—although, as we’ll discover in his comments below, some of it seeped into the opener as well. “The plan was to make one track regarding a huge wasteland, dark and cold, where a gathering of lost souls chained together was being led over a huge bridge that would collapse, and there would be no way back,” he explains. “And then they would end up at the cathedral where they would be kept for all eternity.” Below, Eriksen shares his thoughts—and the English translations—for each of the tracks on the album. Dødsmarsjen “It roughly translates to ‘The March of Death,’ and it's a great way to start off the album. It's a fast track with a lot of energy—and it's a very varied song, which is what I usually strive for. One of the lines is 'Worn-out bodies of sickness and plague/The final march is carried out.' The thing is that I actually did not plan this to be a concept throughout the album—the concept of Katedralen is basically only the final track. But when I look at it now, this song kind of fits.” Svartmalt “This translates to ‘Painted Black,’ and it’s basically about boarding up the windows and locking the doors and just painting everything black. It's a song about negativity at its purest and being misanthropic and just sick of mankind. Call it black and roll, if you want. I love primitive, simple, groovy music, and this is my track on the album to represent that part of me.” Arv “This translates to ‘Heritage,’ and when you hear the music it’s obviously melancholic. It has rough edges but it's got a melodic chorus, which is quite beautiful. And the track is actually quite personal for me, as it is kind of my final acceptance and handling of the fact that my father passed away about four years ago now. So the lyrics in this one are quite graphic, but I see it also as kind of a Viking story—a Viking chief passing away in battle and his legacy being passed to his next of kin.” Evig Intens Smerte “This translates to ‘Eternal Intense Pain,’ and you can actually hear it in the riffs. The song is quite brutal, music-wise. One of the first riffs there, it's kind of dissonant, and that is my depiction of pain.” Det Siste Gode I Meg “This translates to ‘The Loss of Good Within Me,’ and it’s one of the first tracks that I started making for this album, which was a while back now. You’ve got some primitive stuff going on in the beginning, and then it goes over into this more epic and beautiful part, which happened to become a clean vocal chorus kind of thing. And it’s basically about the final straw. Everyone has good in them, but this time it’s disappearing for good.” Født Til Å Herske “This translates roughly to ‘Born to Rule.’ It's basically about self-esteem, I suppose—the self-esteem of us black metallers. And Dolk from Kampfar did an excellent job here. He actually made his own lyrics to answer my original lyrics. So we're two characters answering each other. This is more of a stadium song, if you know what I mean. I can’t wait to play this on the big stages out there.” Lysbæreren “This translates to ‘The Light Bearer.’ It’s a different word for Satan, basically—the opposer, the light bringer. And it's about being opposed to religion and preset rules in life, basically. The music speaks for itself—it's classic, evil-sounding riffs. I think actually I feel some Black Sabbath/Tony Iommi kind of blood in there. It totally sounds like black metal, but the riff is just evil in a cruel and almost cartoon kind of way. I was just being a bit devilish in this one.” De Fortapte Sjelers Katedral “This translates to ‘The Cathedral of Lost Souls.’ It’s basically the entire concept crammed into one track, and it became my most epic track to date. I kind of made my own ‘Stairway to Heaven’ here. This is when the lost souls are finally led into this cathedral and the doors are shut and they are kept in there for all eternity. Eero [Pöyry] from Skepticism plays the pipe organs, and that was magical. It turns out that this is his first time ever doing something outside Skepticism. And the fact that I’ve been listening to Skepticism for 20 years—about the same time I discovered black metal—this is kind of a cool way of closing the circle in my own journey.”