Heidre is a band project founded 2018 in Norway. They create new versions of known and lesser-known hymns. The newly released album Kvit is their debut album. All the lyrics are in Norwegian. Heidre is an old Norwegian word meaning “to honour” or “to praise“.
For the moment Heidre is merely a studio project, but they are also open for other prospects in the future.
The lineup is:
Rita – Vocals
Alf Petter – Guitar, synth
Siggen – Drummer,
Ingvild – Piano
Trond Edvard – Bass
Rita the vocalist is married to Alf Petter who plays guitar and synth. Ingvild the pianist is married to Trond Edvard the bassist of the band.
I got the opportunity to talk to Trond Edvard and ask some questions about the band:
What are your influences, making your music?:
“All the members of the band have a slightly different musical backgrounds, which we have tried to mix this into something new. As a band we would like the music and lyrics to be central and not ourselves as human beings“.
What would you say are the core of the music that the band wants to create?:
“We honour God by playing these hymns. We are very fond of the old Scandinavian hymns that have deep lyrics and beautiful melodies. They address many aspects of life, and we want more to open their eyes to these. Some of the hymns are hundreds of years old, and on one of the hymns we do not know a copywriter. It is sung from generation to generation, until someone wrote it down in 1979. Like “I know a friend”.
With complex guitar riffs, great bass, and drums with metal beats, piano, and female vocals, this album should appeal to fans of symphonic metal. Lyrically, psalms tend to be timeless and handle topics that refer to human life and to Christians living in any decade. And in these metal cover versions, a new generation can discover that God is timeless and has been there from the beginning of the humanity and will be till the end.
Asking Trond Edvard for their vision with this band, he says:
“We have discussed inside the band, and we agreed that we didn’t want so much focus on ourselves, but to the hymns and the music. We would like the music and lyrics to be central and not us as human beings. We will honour God by playing these hymns and love to give anyone interested a little more explanation around the old hymns we’ve chosen. We have already gotten a lot of positive responses about this album and we surely want to make more music in the future.”
My personal favourites would be Jeg Kjenner En Ven, in English “I Know A Friend”. A beautiful description about wandering with Christ and Deg Vaere Aere, “Honour to You”, which is originally written by Händel.
And with hymns or psalms presented like that on a Sunday, no one would call that church sleepy or boring! The album was printed on CD in 300 copies and is nearly sold out as we speak, but still available at The Metal Onslaught (UK), Vision of God records (USA), Nordic Mission (Norway) and White Metalshop (Sweden). The band is considering pressing vinyl, but it´s not decided by the moment of the release of this article.