When I first heard German metal outfit Night in Gales' debut for Nuclear Blast, titled _Towards the Twilight_, I was taken aback by the band's aggressive, yet melodic, music. Think In Flames mixed with At the Gates and you pretty much get the idea of their debut disc. The band explored many cool ideas within the LP and showed that they had worked hard as musicians to make sure their abilities shined from every angle. I was impressed, to say the least.

I'll be honest, though, upon hearing the band's quickly assembled follow-up _Thunderbeast_, I was miffed by the fact that the band had latched onto a stronger, volatile attitude with the music, more aggressive and raw in every aspect, thus losing the melodic tone throughout the release. Had the band shot themselves in the foot by moving onto a new sound? Was the death metal style infiltrating their melodic metal angle? Who knows? It was a mediocre effort in my mind, until I gave it another chance. How do I see the LP now? As an excellent homage to fast-paced death metal, with a pinch of melody thrown in for good measure. The band edged out their soft side, gearing things up for a riotous ruckus for the most part. I'm hooked now more than ever.

"This record seems a bit rushed at times", admits bassist Tobbe Bruchmann early on in the interview, "but that's the way things go. We were touring extensively with numerous bands and just needed to get some ideas into the studio. When we had some time we went in and here is the final result. We wanted to get this out as fast as we could, to show the fans that we really enjoy making music. I am totally satisfied with what we did here. There is so much more here than what we did with the last record."

"The new record is being worked on as we speak", admits Bruchmann, "but we need time to get things going and then properly record. The music has to come from our hearts before we can attempt to record [the album] properly. There are a lot of ideas flowing right now, it just takes time to get them to take shape."

Bruchmann and the rest of Night in Gales -- guitarists Jens and Frank Basten, drummer Christian Bab and singer Bjorn Goobes -- couldn't be happier with the way things are headed for the band. "We are just so happy to be back out there with [new] material. Showing people that we mean business. It's tough to keep people interested with what you do. Hopefully people take note of what we did here with _Thunderbeast_."

One thing Bruchmann is adamant about with his band is to avoid following trends. His love for trendy bands is non-existent. "We aim to focus on our influences, rather than what the new sound of today is. We are one half heavy metal band, the other half a brutal death metal band. It has a bit of melody and harmonic guitar lines, paired up with a serious death metal overtone. There are not a lot of bands here in Germany that sound like we do. Many go with the trends. That's just not us. We'd rather stick to our roots and influences and bring that back into the music that we create."

"It's been a great last few years. The band's musical skills have developed quite a bit over the years", he says. "The new material, compared to the old stuff, sounds much better. It sounds better, we played better and even the production is top notch. When we were starting out early on with our debut 7" and demo CD _Sylphlike_, we were a little ignorant of how things worked. We wondered how to get the sound and production to sound so good. It was a learning experience and I think with _Thunderbeast_ people will hear that and see that we mastered the art of making music. We've brought changes to this band, but not enough to [fuel] the notion that we jumped on any trend. Fuck going with trends. Music is about creating your own ideas. We follow that philosophy, I wish others would too."