A&P-Reacts conducted an interview with vocalist Yannis Papadopoulos of Finnish melodic metallers BEAST IN BLACK at this year's Heavy Montreal festival. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET). On whether the success of their 2017 "Berserker" debut put pressure on BEAST IN BLACK for its follow-up, this year's "From Hell With Love": Yannis: "You always pressure yourself, basically. Because, we're the kind of guys that really don't want to do anything inferior in comparison to anything. But it always comes down to personal taste anyway, but I like the new album even more, I can say. Some songs that take more…I'm actually very happy about the bonus tracks as well, which are covers that I really like, especially [ROBERT TEPPER's] 'No Easy Way Out', which belongs in my top ten list. Apart from those, even though it was a stressful period, we were recording on the weekdays, then the weekends we had festivals. Despite all these circumstances, it turned out even better than expected and we're very happy about it. I think the third one is going to be even better." On the song from "From Hell With Love" he's particularly fond of: Yannis: "I think always the vibe I get from 'Cry Out For A Hero'. It's like my training montage song, basically. Every time I listen to it or every time, I sing it live, even when I rehearse at home, what I do is the static bicycle with that. I'm trying to emulate the exhaustion of the stage. Even in that stressful occasion, I really get pumped up. It gives me the energy boost that I need. It's the perfect opener for the gig as well. I think that song is my go-to from this album. I really love it." On the ballad "Oceandeep": Yannis: "Anton [Kabanen, guitar] was originally intending to have another ballad for the album. But he was having trouble fitting lyrics for that song. He was like really stressing and really struggling. He wanted to hit his head on the wall because he was unable to do it. I said 'Hey, dude, relax. Take it easy, focus on something else. It's going to be okay.' Because some of the lyrics were even written during the recording process, which was insane — I don't get that guy sometimes. In any case, a couple of days later, he's like 'Hey, what do you think about this song? I think I've figured out some lyrics for this.' I'm like, 'Are you kidding me? Of course!' So, we went aboard, and I think it happened almost at the last part of the recording session. I think that was the song that I did the most vocal takes. I had an approach A, and Anton had an approach B, so it was tough for me to instinctively sing in the second approach. Every time I opened my mouth, the first one was coming out. We were, like, 'Okay, let's find the golden path for this.' Most of this album has ended up better than we expected, which is really making us proud and happy." BEAST IN BLACK's sophomore album, "From Hell With Love", was released on February 8 via Nuclear Blast. The follow-up to 2017's "Berserker" was once again recorded in Anton's Sound Request Studio, and true to the motto "never change a winning team," the cover artwork was created by Roman Ismailov, who worked on "Berserker" as well as the first record Kabanen wrote with BATTLE BEAST, "Steel" (2012). Kabanen was dismissed from BATTLE BEAST in February 2015 due to what was described at the time as "insurmountable disagreements" with the other members of the band.
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