Beast In Black are close to finishing Fear The Beast, their fourth album and the first since Dark Connection in 2021, Anton Kabanen says.
He gave the explanation for the gap to Jovan Ristić of Soundcheck, and it is more candid than the usual version. The band decided after the last record to tour more than they ever had, and they did. Writing continued through it, and plenty of it: forty or fifty songs, by his own estimate, of which only some will survive the choosing.
What was missing was not material but room. "The band grew, and we had a lot of responsibilities, bigger weight on the shoulders and not enough time for myself to rest," he says. "Tour after tour and then summer festival, then again some tour and there hasn't been proper peace and focus for making this album. That's why it's been taking so long and gone so slow."
Kabanen writes everything in this band, as he did in Battle Beast before it, which is why a touring year costs him an album in a way it would not cost a group that writes together. The title track is already out.