10 years today: Kollwitz - Like Iron I Rust

It's been 10 years since the Norwegian sludge monolith Like Iron I Rust hit the earth with a ground shattering impact. We were overwhelmed by the album then, and we still are. We reached out to the band, and the lovely Endre Njøs responded to our humble request. The band even gave us a bunch of pictures that may, or may not have been previously published. Enjoy!

Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions! For those who doesn't know you, would you mind giving a brief introduction of the band?

Kollwitz started around 2006 in our hometown Bodø. We make slow music slowly, so far resulting in two albums, Like Iron I Rust and Dissonance. For the majority of our time, we have had our home base in Oslo, but various members live in different parts of the country. 

10 years have gone by since the release of Like Iron I Rust. How is it to look back on the record after a decade?

It is almost hard to believe that it has been 10 years! There is something special about a band's debut album, both the anticipation beforehand, and the actual outcome. We were (and are) somewhat perplex about the way it was received – certainly far better than what our expectations were. We are certainly proud of our debut album, but like most things in life we find there are things that could have been better in retrospect. It is a document of who were, what we were doing and what our resources were at the time. Others will have to decide if the music itself has stood the test of time.

How was the process surrounding the record? Has other recordings had any other processes?

The process of making the album itself was very normal. We suck at being efficient, so we spent quite a lot of time on it, but nothing overly dramatic. The basic tracks were done in Caliban Studios, and then we did vocals and various overdubs in our rehearsal space, before taking it back to Caliban to mix. The songs were mostly written and arranged before going into the studio. We had been a band for quite a while already, so the songs on Like Iron are more or less the first songs we felt confident enough to put on an album and release to the world. The process of making the follow-up was pretty much the same. We didn't have a lot of surplus songs from the first album, if any, so we started more or less from scratch. Still, we followed the usual routine of writing songs in the rehearsal space, and then recording them in a studio. 

Will there be any celebrations around the jubilee?

The band hasn't really been active the last couple of years unfortunately, mostly because we live scattered around Norway. We don't have anything solid as of now, but it might be that we are working on something...