“We set out to write a record about life, and it ended up being about death,” says Lord Dying guitarist/vocalist Erik Olson about the band’s third studio album Mysterium Tremendum (2019). While the new record centers around death (and you bet your ass it’s a double-LP concept album), it focuses more on what awaits us on the other side (while also exploring our culture’s fear of dying and the struggles with our mortality). The ideas for the concept have been kicking around for some time, but it’s fitting that they’re only now coming to fruition.
Mysterium Tremendum is the record Olson and Evans have wanted to make since the band’s inception. It’s easily Lord Dying’s most musically diverse album, but one that could only be created following the band’s jackhammer 2013 debut Summon the Faithless, and 2015’s brooding Poisoned Altars. “It’s more along the lines of what we wanted to do early on,” says Evans.
Mysterium Tremendum is an emotionally satisfying record, lyrically and musically. Its exploration of death goes beyond longing for it to see what lies beyond (“Lacerated Psyche” is about the death of Evans’ sister). There are many layers to it—you might even find parallels between the record’s concept and life itself. It’s a journey. And in their quest to pursue death, Lord Dying have themselves found new life.
