Nad Sylvan

After the conclusion of the successful trilogy of albums following the tales of "The Vampirate" (2015's Courting the Widow, 2017's The Bride Said No, and 2019's The Regal Bastard), vocalist Nad Sylvan was considering a different approach for his next project. A surprise collaboration on his last album would serve as the inspiration for his latest release, Spiritus Mundi. "After I had finished my trilogy, I thought what should I do now? Well, a couple of years ago, a songwriter by the name of Andrew Laitres asked me if I could sing on a song he was working on. It ended up on my previous album The Regal Bastard as a bonus track called "The Lake Isle of Innisfree." I was thinking I'd like to work with this guy again to see if we can come up with something together. So, I listened to some of his demos and I thought, why don't we develop these songs together into proper songs with great arrangements. I suggested this to him and he was in." The two had only met twice in person before, during the tours with Steve Hackett where Sylvan is the lead vocalist. Since Laitres lives in US in Vermont, and Sylvan in Sweden, they worked over the past year by sending files back and forth. "Andrew wanted me to sing on this stuff and was happy to do some backing vocals with the odd lead vocal here and there. He has a lovely, almost kind of Roger Hodgson from Supertramp kind of quality to his voice and that combined with my baritone voice I think makes a really interesting soundscape with us two together. Andrew is one of those very talented guys that doesn't have the right connections and doesn't have a proper record deal and I just recognized myself in him because I was in the same way for years and years." The album centers around the poems coming from Nobel Prize winning William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) and who Sylvan calls 'one of the finest poets to come out of Ireland.' The lyrics for "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" that I initially sang on the previous album are also from Yeats, so I just thought why not just use some really fantastic lyrics, so I don't have to write them this time. (laughs) It was just kind of nice not having to write the lyrics and focus solely on the music." As for the meanings in the songs, Sylvan prefers to leave those up to interpretation. "Yeats had a lot of double meanings to his poems and I'm yet to find out some of those, but just the sound of the words and the meaning that I could grasp, I thought was absolutely wonderful." The album marks a shift musically from Sylvan's previous outing focusing more on the lyrics and vocals in tandem with gorgeous orchestration and timely melodies. This can be heard from the onset of the album's opening track "The Second Coming", one of Yeats' most famous poems, or in the track "To An Isle In the Water" which is performed with a few acoustic guitars, flutes and strings. "If you compare it to my previous albums, the music is a bit more sparse, there's more air. The whole album is based around my vocals and Andrews guitars spiced up with some orchestral stuff. I worked very hard on the vocals on this one. I would link bits together I thought really worked and then I would go back to them and do take another take on a word that could be more emphasized. I was even more meticulous with the vocals this time, down to the smallest breath due to the nature of the music." The album's first single "You've Got to Find A Way", is one of 2 bonus tracks on the album and is the only song that Sylvan wrote completely on his own. "It works very well with the record, but just because it isn't a Yeats lyric, I thought it worked best as a bonus track". Sylvan has always managed to cull together a notable cast of guest musicians for his album and this album follows suit. Tony Levin contributes his unique skills on bass to 4 tracks, while Jonas Reingold is also present on bass for one track. For drums, Sylvan targeted The Flower Kings drummer Mirkko DeMaio. And of course, Steve Hackett makes an appearance one track titled "To a Child Dancing in the Wind." While some of the mixing and mastering was done during the last year, writing and recording actually began in late 2019, before the world was shut down. Being off the road allowed for more time to mix and perfect every aspect. The result is a collection that Sylvan calls his best work. "I'm so excited about it's release. Anyone that has heard it just loves it. They think that this is my best album and I tend to agree. It's a bit different than what I've done before and that's a good thing."