INTERVIEW: Blind Channel - “Are we alone in the universe? And if we are, we're not doing a very good job about it!”
For BLIND CHANNEL frontman NIKO MOILANEN, stepping away from the spotlight was a chance to rediscover what making music meant to him and his bandmates. After 20 months away from touring and publicity, the Finnish band returns with Painstream, their sixth album, out now via Century Media Records.
The break wasn't about giving up. It was about finding a different way forward. “We really needed to get rid of the deadlines” Niko explains. “We had no idea if we were gonna come back and when. We just knew that we were not going to quit on music.” Free from pressure, the band experimented, questioned old habits and even tried writing happier songs, although “that didn't really work out,” he laughs. The result is an album that returns to their roots while exploring heavier, more cinematic and introspective territory. Across twelve tracks, pain emerges as a shared human experience rather than something that divides us. “We want every song to be a journey and an exploration of the world, ourselves and humanity” Niko says.
The theme wasn't planned. After writing around forty songs and narrowing them down to twelve, the band noticed a common thread. “Every single one of those songs is, one way or another, about pain.”
That realisation also made them think about their approach to music now compared to their earlier work. “We've done those albums about partying and this almost nihilist aspect, like the world's burning and we're all going to die, so let's just party. And that was us in our twenties, but right now we have to look around us and see that there are actually a lot of things that matter to us a great deal, and we want to sing about those things. We want to encourage people to see and believe those things.” he reflects.
Their defiance remains, but now it comes with a willingness to ask difficult questions: can pain connect people who otherwise have little in common? “I don't think it necessarily answers it, because I couldn't answer it myself. None of us could.” Niko admits. The band has faced its own uncertain periods, including moments where they wondered whether they'd reached the end. “But it wasn't. Actually, now we're closer than ever and in a better place.”
For Niko, music can make those difficult experiences feel less lonely. “I try to be specific enough so people feel that I'm writing from the heart and it's very personal, because they are personal texts. But at the same time, I try to also make it a bit abstract.” He shares lyrics with his bandmates to see whether they recognise their own experiences in them, aiming to leave listeners room to find their own meaning, too. “We want to make songs of importance,” he says. “If the song can make the tiniest difference, then it's worth writing and releasing.”
That sense of purpose shapes the album's relationship with art and entertainment. “I don't think they're exclusive things. I think a great song can be both.” But while entertainment can offer an escape, Niko believes art should challenge us. “Great entertainment encourages you not to think, you can just turn your mind off and be entertained, whereas great art encourages you to think.” For BLIND CHANNEL, Painstream is about making people reflect, not simply feel the impact of the music. Hope also found its way into the record, unbeknownst to all. Niko describes the opus’ sequencing as “a zooming in and out”, moving between questions about the universe and humanity and more intimate struggles.
Writing Diana also helped the band recognise how much they wanted to embrace a heavier sound. “All of us went, ‘I always wanted to do a heavy song like this!’” Niko recalls. Each member had assumed the others preferred their established style. By speaking more openly and letting go of expectations, they found renewed creative freedom. “Stripping off anything that we didn't feel 100% authentic or comfortable with and just seeing what comes out” he says. “Painstream is what came out of that.”
Into The Void, featuring OF MICE & MEN's Aaron Pauley, expands the album's cinematic scope while asking an uncomfortable question about life on Earth. “Are we alone in the universe? And if we are, we're not doing a very good job about it!” Niko says. A long-held collaboration, the track combines electronic textures, heavy riffs and contrasting vocals. “I think he nailed it the first time,” Niko says of Pauley's contribution.
Film and anime soundtracks also supported the cinematic aspect of the record, with composers HIROYUKI SAWANO, LUDWIG GÖRANSSON and HANS ZIMMER among Niko's inspirations. Rather than relying on heavy guitars alone, the band wanted to build atmosphere and tension. That cinematic ambition never came at the expense of humanity. During recording, they chose authenticity over technical perfection. “We're gonna go with the human take while recording, which has the little crack in my voice, which isn't perfect,” Niko explains. “Art is not supposed to be perfect. It is not what we're looking for.” Instead, “We want connection, we want shared humanity.”
Being so open and vulnerable can, however, be frightening. “It's really terrifying. Saying this is who I am, and what if people don't like it?” he admits. The positive response to the first singles has encouraged the band to keep growing without losing the freedom they found during their break. “It's the safe space to actually be exactly who we are,” Niko says. “And I hope we never lose that.”
Painstream marks a different kind of rebellion: facing what hurts instead of turning away. It offers no easy answers, only the possibility that pain, experienced differently by everyone, can become a point of connection. Beneath the heaviness, anger and uncertainty lies a simple belief: we don't need to have everything figured out to understand one another. Sometimes, being honest about what we feel is enough to remind us that we're all human.
Words: Lysandre Pons
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