Timing Your Run With LENA SCISSORHANDS From INFECTED RAIN

Interview by Kris Peters
Moldovian metal hybrid Infected Rain are currently riding the wave
of global acceptance that has been 16 years in the making.
Since debuting in 2008, Infected Rain have often been undervalued
in an industry that too often rewards mediocrity, finding
themselves caught in musical purgatory on many levels simply
because they are a band almost impossible to pigeonhole or genre
classify.
In a world that is becoming increasingly sanitised and regulated,
Infected Rain have always dared to be different.
To do things their way.
With a sonic intensity harnessing genres from progressive rock to
electronica to nu-metal to out-and-out aggression, Infected Rain
have steadfastly refused to conform but more or less forced the
world to take notice with their acclaimed 2022 album Ecdysis. It
was an album that broke down barriers for the band, opening them up
to a new audience that were pounded into submission.
With the recently released successor Time expanding on the
creativity and musicianship of its predecessor, Infected Rain are
finally earning the respect they so richly deserve, with festival
opportunities and high-profile support slots continuing the band's
upward trajectory.
HEAVY caught up with vocalist Lena Scissorhands to discuss the new
album.
"We have just released our sixth album," she smiled. "After all
these years, it is quite a milestone for us. We started in 2008 in
a very small country in Eastern Europe."
Time was released just last Friday, so we start by asking Lena how
the early reception has been.
"Very good so far," she nodded. "More than we could expect. Great
comments, great feedback. People are loving it."
We ask her to take us deeper into the musical side of Time.
"From the musical point of view, I think you want to talk to my
musicians more," she handpassed, "because they are more the
composers of the instrumental parts. When they are ready, and they
have a raw version of a song or a good chunk of an idea of a song,
they often send it over so I can start thinking in that direction
and see what inspires me and what I could adapt to that melody. To
me, it's just when I have the songs my task is to compose melody
and upline lyrics I go based on how the instruments make me feel,
and that's how I choose what is the direction of the song and what
lyrics I'm going to apply. We have something that we introduced for
the first time on this album, which is an eight-string guitar. Some
of the songs are recorded for eight-string guitar, and we've never
had that before. Also, we have a new bass player. Even though she
joined the band after the composing stage of the album, she
recorded a big part of the songs. We've already been on tour
together, and it feels really great."
In the full interview, Lena talks more about the songs on Time, the
eclectic nature of the music and making it cohesive, her transition
from harsh to clean vocals and how much work is put into her
vocals, the underlying theme of the album, pressures associated
with following the success of Ecdysis, Infected Rain's upcoming
tour with Dragonforce and Amaranthe and more.