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An Epilogue of Sorts:
The Aching Rhythm of the Haunted Heart
The Closing of the Laurentian Trilogy

On Woodland Caribou and Cedar:

So much of this album is about things that passed. In truth, the entire trilogy broaches the subject and returns to it over and over. The trilogy touches on similar subjects throughout, but from different perspectives.
…and Again into the Light is a personal reflection and lamentation over real life events. The Rime of Memory is ideological, drawing a metaphorical comparison of the climate crisis to a midlife crisis. Rime reflects on the consequences of aging and a life lived.
Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet reflects on how we as people are the sum of our parts and experiences. The way we see the world is through the foggy lenses of our memory. And then one day, it all stops. I have this thought that life is this runaway train that only stops when it crashes. We are unwitting passengers riding to our doom. As the train gathers speed, the sights seen from the passenger car windows become less enticing as we become more and more aware of our own eventuality.

Woodland caribou once roamed the North Woods of Minnesota. And like so many things, they gave way to a new species, the white-tailed deer, that followed the saw North. These very animals preyed on the saplings of the woodland caribou’s habitat and food sources, the white cedar trees and boreal lichen.The deer spread disease and outcompeted the caribou to the point that it wasn’t sustainable for them anymore. Succumbing to disease, starvation, and simply abandoning the region, the woodland caribou became a thing of folklore in these parts.
A central theme in the album’s lyrics and stories is the Scandinavian immigrant culture of Minnesota. It is something that was brought over by Nordic immigrants and remained a stronghold in Minnesotan culture until it was outcompeted by an American culture obsessed with trends and technology. As such, the very descendants of those immigrants became more interested in pop culture phenomena than the “tired culture” of their grandparents.
Minnesota’s culture has long been largely based on immigrant populations and will remain so in my opinion. To resist that eventual change is a fool's errand. Just as the forest's dominant flora and fauna ebbs and flows, so does our culture, based on who is living here. If we wish to keep aspects of our own individual traditions, it is simply up to us to keep those flames burning in our own lives as individuals and families.
Unlike the woodland caribou, we are not being outcompeted, we are simply losing interest in the things we once thought defined us in an ever-diversifying ecosystem. We are slowly letting our lives pass us by until one day, we look up from our distractions and it’s over.

A Snowless Winter, After All

Much of the concept behind this album was initially inspired from an interest in further elaborating on the lyrical concept behind the song “A Snowless Winter” from …and Again into the Light. Even though the lyrics were not published due to the deeply personal and therapeutic nature of that album’s content, an excerpt may well serve as an illustration to the song’s relevance:

“As a species, we cannibalize our own souls
in lives cut short or unobserved.
The decisions we make to fetishize isolation
prevent us to learn
from our mistakes,
from all of our pain,
the substance of emptiness
as a contagious disease.
Never to ask: ‘Will you drown with me?’”

As I am sure many are familiar, in the realms of popular culture a media phenomenon has swept through that romanticizes isolated living, and wilderness. It packages these things with glamorized, pseudo introversion. I’m not talking about people that read loads of Sigurd Olson, Anna Labastille, or who’ve watched Dick Proennekke’s Alone in the Wilderness too many times. I’m talking about social media influencers who document their sponsored wilderness lifestyle. They’ve stylized it into an idyllic, unrealistic version of what it's like to live in wild places.
These unrealistic representations of life in remote and unpopulated places led to the detriment of many of the people who have attempted that lifestyle. I believe it caused a backlash against distancing ourselves from urbanism and hyper-modern, technology-focused lifestyles.
For the sake of eccentricity and exclusivity, the truth seemed obscured. Wilderness and solitude are NOT mutually exclusive. Community exists even in the remote places of the world, often in necessity, and wilderness exists on the doorstep of urbanism, the world over.
When I spent time thinking about that, and seeing this backlash actualized, even within my own little branch of the metal scene, my thoughts evolved into something deeper: a fictional narrative that explores the way society has changed with mounting modern conveniences and technology at our disposal. I wanted to expand on the statement I made on the liner notes from The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness: Part 1:

“Quiet and primitive places are in short supply. Even that day on Listening Point (Sigurd Olson’s remote cabin) we heard and saw snowmobiles buzzing around the lake. It’s hard for modern Americans to detach. Everywhere I look there is a brazen screen lit up.”

There’s an inherent need to reconnect with our environment, a peace that only nature can provide. A silence that can only be experienced, not heard. Our hearts are haunted by this, drowning in the noise of modernity. We are lonesome for the silence away from constant gadgetry and the pervasive sound of bustling cities. And since there’s already several records with the name “The Haunted Heart,” I went with it in Norwegian, the only other language I am somewhat familiar with: Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet.

The Great Silence: Extinct. A Culture of Wilderness: Vanishing

The main character in the album is a composite of many different people ranging from famed champions of wilderness like Sigurd Olsen and Dick Proenekke to family members and friends. The character is inspired by people like my neighbor at the old cabin our family once had in the Superior National Forest. He was a man who had lived in the remote reaches of the North Woods in a primitive cabin for 40 plus years. I wanted to paint a realistic image of these people through a singular character, while also making reference to cultural aspects that create significance and deepen the character’s world.
Months of research went into the writing: “Was there a functioning hospital in Duluth at the time the main character was born?” “Were chainsaws invented by or accessible during the time that the character might have been working in the logging industry?” “What industry existed in certain parts of the state during the character’s childhood?”
It’s easy to take that stuff for granted… and this being the first time I have ever done anything like this, each answer bore another question. At some point I had to accept that my story may not always be water tight. In the end, what matters most is the central message of the album and accompanying stories: We are the sum of our parts. Nothing is constant but change. The world we inherited is not the world we will leave, and to be un-malleable and rigid is to do a disservice to ourselves.
The essence of The Rime of Memory is herein contained: Nothing remains frozen forever. This moment in time we have is as fragile as the rime on branches.

Ghost Eyes, Again in the Firelight

Quiet moments of reflection are lacking in this world. We are constantly bombarded with stimuli, constantly forced to make decisions against the rapid fire flashing of screens and the influx of commercial noise, persuading us to acquiesce to its desires of faithful consumerism.
Even here in Ely, it is incessant. Ever-present on the horizon just off in the distance in the night sky, there’s a glow in the dark, drowning out the stars in one little blind spot on the horizon. Many people’s blindspot is the entire sky. Many people’s blindspot is in front of them all day in their cubicle at work. Many people’s blindspot is some distraction that keeps them from their lives and loved ones.
To draw from some of Sigurd Olson’s thoughts, paraphrasing and even perhaps expanding upon an idea – when we gaze into the embers of a fire, we do the same as our ancestors before us, since the dawn of time. That fire has been replaced with a light that distracts and separates us from one another, rather than drawing us closer in warmth and community. In this way, Det Hjemsøkte Hjertet serves as a warning for this isolation that has now become so normal. An isolation once only experienced by those who lived in the far reaches of the wild is now felt in the most densely populated urban landscapes on earth.

Don’t let the fire burn out. 

Austin