Swedish power metal outfit Rexoria have never been content fitting into a box — and with their fourth album Fallen Dimension, they’ve made sure no box could hold them anyway. We sat down with vocalist Frida Ohlin and guitarist Jonas Gustavsson to talk crowns, catastrophe, and the kingdom.
You’ve officially coined your sound as ‘Royal Metal’. With Fallen Dimension, do you feel you’ve finally reached the ‘Golden’ standard of what this genre was meant to be — or is the empire still expanding? What’s the moment you realised Rexoria isn’t just another power metal band anymore?
I am so glad you bring this up — and that the information about our style and brand has been understood! But of course, the empire is still expanding. And always will. As long as new people decide to join it and walk beside us on the Rexoria journey, we will keep growing stronger, bigger, and bolder each day.
We never actually thought of ourselves as power metal, or any other specific genre. That has always been a bit of an issue for us, since we don’t feel that we fit in anywhere — because our music is actually something else. So one day we sat down and really thought about this. And we realized that we feel this way because our music has always been built on power, strength, emotions, and most of all — unity with our fans. In each song, we want the listener to feel like they just have to step into the empire with us.
And when we had established that, we — funny enough — realized that this had been right the whole time. Because the name Rexoria says it all: REX means king and ORIA means golden. The Golden Kingdom has been around us all along.
You’ve hit big stages across Europe yet still carry that raw live energy that keeps fans coming back. How do you balance the professional polish of a recording band with the grit your audience loves at shows?
I think it’s about trying to be in the moment. At home, working on music, it’s more long-term focus, details in each part of a song, and so on. But on stage — you just bring it. And with a cheering crowd, jumping up and down and singing along, that gives you all the fuel you need to give everything you’ve got. That’s such a wonderful feeling, and also what you wait for in the time between shows. So when you are finally there, you have an overload of energy to share with the audience!
Who are some ‘Underground Kings’ or rising Swedish acts that the world needs to be paying more attention to right now? Which band is criminally underrated?
That is a hard one. When you work so much on your own stuff, there’s barely any time left to discover other bands and new music. But we do have some friends in The Lightbringer of Sweden — a really cool power metal band that deserves more attention.
With four albums now, the ‘problem’ of the setlist starts. Which old song is the hardest to cut to make room for the Fallen Dimension tracks?
One that has stayed with us for a long time as a finishing anthem at our shows is Reach for the Heavens in Time. We are so used to playing it now that we could do it in our sleep, haha. So that would be hard to let go of. But since there are so many great new songs on Fallen Dimension, hopefully it will turn into an even stronger live show!
You worked with Jonas Kjellgren — Sabaton, Bloodbound — for mixing and mastering. He’s a legend in the Swedish scene. How much did his ‘wall of sound’ influence push you to change your arrangements? Did working with him challenge anything you thought was ‘core Rexoria’?
Actually, we didn’t really have to change anything during the process, since we had recorded everything before we sent it away for mixing and mastering. But since we are both Swedish — our band and Kjellgren — it has been very easy to communicate about the songs, sounds, and the final result.
One thing that did change was that we created a crazy amount of tracks for each song, just to be sure we had enough — and not too little. So some instrument or backing vocal tracks were removed to create a better balance. And there, Kjellgren was a great help in polishing the final details!
‘Break the Wave’ feels like a massive anthem. Was it always meant to be that big, or did it evolve into something larger than you expected?
I think it evolved over time. I got the chorus melody stuck in my head after we had written a few songs and went around at home singing “Say hey, break the wave” — and I felt it was a great hook. And Jonas, our lead guitarist and co-writer, immediately felt the energy in it. It was actually a pretty easy song to write, since it’s a Rexoria song all the way.
But the more we worked with it in terms of melodies, harmonies, and arrangements, the more we felt it was a strong choice for a single.
Johnny Gioeli and Mike Andersson are both powerhouses in the scene. What did each of them bring to the record that pushed Rexoria further than you could have gone alone?
I don’t know if it pushed us further than we could have gone on our own, but it’s always great to have well-known names helping you reach new fans and listeners. They both contributed amazing vocals that matched really well with my voice. Mike brought a certain heaviness to a more war-oriented song, while Johnny brought power and emotion to the ballad, making the album more dynamic. They are two great songs that I hope listeners will really enjoy.
Tell us a bit more about the concept behind the title Fallen Dimension.
The name of the album became clear after a few songs had been written. As an artist and songwriter, you often find yourself expressing emotions and thoughts about the world in your music. And because of the dark times we are living in right now, many of the lyrics reflect that.
Both in the sense that even in the darkest times, we can be stronger if we unite and stand together. But also in a more sarcastic way, where the attitude is that we don’t give a shit about their horrible political decisions, and will live our best lives anyway. Like in Dancing on the Ruins: “Sipping bitter coffee while the worlds collide. We drink and smile, as the soldiers march in line.”
The South African metal scene is notoriously passionate — any aspirations to bring the ‘Royal’ empire to our shores in the future?
To be honest, this is actually our first interview with a South African magazine, so we haven’t had much direct connection to the scene there yet — which makes it even more exciting for us. So the idea of bringing Rexoria and our Royal Metal to South Africa would be something truly special, and definitely something we would love to experience in the future — to meet all the amazing metalheads there!
If the tour bus was sinking and you could only save one item — what is the most essential ‘Rexoria’ item that must survive?
Haha, what an interesting question! And a hard one… But I think we would all agree that we should save what we call “Manicken” — our live player device that we need for almost everything, including keyboards, click tracks, backing vocals, and more. And they don’t sell them anymore.
You can always buy a new guitar, but this one is like gold for us, haha!
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