*Music and lyric comments by Mikael Dahl

GODS OF DISORDER
This song is a tribute to the past and a couple of bands that had a huge impact on me as a kid. I had already discovered Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Ozzy, Scorpions, Accept etc, but sometime around 1984 the videos of Mötley Crūe, Twisted Sister and W.A.S.P just popped right out of the TV and to me they were like superheroes and everything I wanted to be. I filled my room with their posters and articles and of course, bought their albums which I still love. The song references in the pre-chorus are pretty obvious: “Stay hungry! They roared and I knew, I wanted to be somebody too. With red hot desire I followed the beast away”. I would give anything to get back to the time when I discovered all those bands and that’s what this song is really about. Wolf Hoffmann is my number one guitar hero and the influences of Accept are shining in this song. As an opening riff, I was looking for the feeling of “Red Hot” with Mötley Crūe and Henrik demanded to play the cowbell in the middle break and in the end to make it even more “Tommy Lee”. The effect on the drum intro is inspired by Peter Criss drum solo on Kiss “Alive”.

SIDE BY SIDE
The traditional vengeance song continuing the path of “Glory Ride”, “Hail The Fallen”, “Victims Of The Frozen Hate”, “Battlefield”, “Highland Revenge”, “White Wolves” etc. Together we are strong and together we shall prevail, as simple as that. There’s also the Manowar aspect of it, that we’re standing side by side as a band. The title was taken from one of the first Crystal Eyes songs I ever wrote in 1993. Musical wise there are clear Running Wild influences but that should not surprise any of our old fans since Rock ‘n’ Rolf smelling riffs and melodies can be found on all our albums. The guitar harmonies in the slow section after the second chorus is inspired by a part of the song “Twilight Dreams” on the “The Final Sign” demo-tape from 1997. Fun video fact: The lighting engineer and the one who arranged so we could film in this theatre was Mikael Blohm (bass player in Crystal Eyes between 1993-95).

EXTREME PARANOIA
My old friend Andreas Götesson wrote the lyrics to this one back in 1996. (Andreas has to this day written lyrics for 20 songs on Crystal Eyes albums including 5 co-written with me plus a whole bunch of unreleased stuff in the early days). It was one of those rare moments when I composed the full song in one evening within a couple of hours and asked Andreas for lyrics the next day. It turned out that he had written lyrics without any particular song or melody in mind and it fitted right in without changing a word. The title says it all: When the man in the mirror is your worst enemy. The insane speed and happy melodies are probably the results of listening to the fantastic songs of Helloween and Kai Hansen for years. The first version of this song appeared on the “The Final Sign” demo-tape in 1997 and then released on the debut album “World Of Black And Silver” in 1999. If you listen carefully you’ll hear Jonatan making his best Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation at the end.

STARBOURNE TRAVELER
A dream about leaving the Earth to fly free among the stars in outer space. A kind of dream that was easy to visualize as a front cover which was the reason why we choose this as the title of the album. It’s also about the feeling of not belonging and the wish for a different kind of life. I’m not sure where this drumbeat came from but I just started drumming on my knees and there was the foundation to this song. “Take On The World” and “United” by Judas Priest was probably pumping somewhere in the back of my head and suddenly a Judas Priest style riff was born and the song just wrote itself. The guitar melody after the second chorus is taken from the song “Queen Of The Night” from the first official demo-tape in 1994 and the vocal melody in the verse is almost the same as an unreleased song from 1993 called “Diamond Eyes”.

CORRIDORS OF TIME
Almost the same kind of concept as “Starbourne Traveler”, when you wish to leave everything behind and go your own way. This time about someone who can see into the future where nothing good awaits and choose to hide in a fantasy world. The riff and the verse has a clear Ozzy Osbourne vibe and no one can miss the “Crazy Train” reference in the intro. While mixing Fredrik Nordström told us he was expecting the “Bark At The Moon”-howl at any second of the song. The chorus comes from the song “Another Race” on the “The Dragon’s Lair” demo-tape from 1998 with just a small melody modification. For the slower bridge, we brought back the keyboard used on “Vengeance Descending” to get the old-school Crystal Eyes feeling. The screaming falsetto harmonies at the end of the bridge is of course inspired by Sweet.

PARADISE POWERLORD
This one is a big kick in the ass of the rulers around the world. There’s no need to mention any names because you all know who these clowns are. It’s a pretty unusual song for Crystal Eyes where you can find influences of Ratt, U.D.O, Judas Priest, Van Halen and even Whitesnake in the Cozy Powell inspired drum part after the second chorus. The verse and the chorus are something that’s been laying around for maybe 10-15 years but once I got that first riff right it all came together pretty fast. And of course, we had to have that hit-song key change at the end and I tried my very best to imitate Udo Dirkschneider in the highest screams.

INTO THE FIRE
Another song about revenge and this time it’s the knights of Terrion that are storming the gates of Hell to destroy the Devil. The name “Terrion” is a nod to the band Scanner and the lyrics come with extra cheese. This song smells like galloping Running Wild and Iron Maiden and was put together by a lot of old and unused ideas and melodies. The vocal melody in the first part of the first verse is of a mix of 2 vocal melodies from songs I wrote in my previous band sometime around 1987-88. Right after the second chorus comes a guitar melody from an unreleased song called “Lost (In Space)” which was written in 1995 and was meant to be the second part in a trilogy starting with “Interstellar War” and ending with “Vengeance Descending”. The vocal melody in the bridge was the chorus of the original version of “Winternight” written in 1995.

IN THE EMPIRE OF SAINTS
This song is my dedication to the memory of my old friend José Sanchez who past away in cancer 2 years ago. He was the singer of a band called Empire Saint which was the first band I saw live on stage sometime in the late eighties and he made a huge impression on me. In the mid-nineties, we became friends for life and always supported each other’s bands. We also had a cover band together where we only played the songs we loved and when it was time for him to record a solo album I helped him out with guitars and production. The memories are countless and his burning ambition and passion for music will always follow me. It was really hard to write the emotional lyrics and I struggled to hold back the tears while recording the vocals. I had this idea of having a big choir at the end to get a kind of “We Are The World” feeling so I invited close friends and previous band members to José plus another choir. The result is beyond my expectations and I can’t listen to the ending part without falling in tears. For the solo, I tried to play something really special that came from the heart but also sounded like an echo of Empire Saint. The songs “Broken Dreams” and “Don’t Treat Me Like A Fool” can be found on Youtube and hopefully, you can hear traces of those 2 songs in the solo. To close the circle the clean guitars were recorded with Empire Saint guitarist Peter Johansson’s acoustic guitar.

MIDNIGHT RADIO
My tribute the Swedish radio show “Rockbox”. It was like my older brother through the eighties and the place where I found 99% of the music that I still listen to. Every Saturday I was waiting with my double cassette player ready to record and after the show, I copied the best songs to another tape. All those tapes are still with me. I have so many memories of all great bands and songs I heard for the first time on this show and the voice of the radio host Pär Fontander is forever stuck in my head. Once I won a “Rockbox” t-shirt and a sticker on one of the many competitions and I was the hero in school next Monday since every true Metalhead was listening. Sadly my friends threw the t-shirt away after I got too drunk and vomited all over it (Please let me be a teenager again!). The chorus is about 15 years old and I never knew what to do with it until now. The verse is almost as old but once I put those two together the rest of the song was written pretty fast. The bridge is very influenced by Saxon’s “Innocence Is No Excuse” which is one of my favorite albums and the big crowd was taken from 2 live recordings by Judas Priest.

RAGE ON THE SEA
I wrote the lyrics to this one 24 years ago and there’s nothing more to say, except that it’s about pirates. It’s the oldest Crystal Eyes song on any of our albums. The first recording was a demo in 1995 and then it was recorded for the official “The Final Sign” demo-tape in 1997. It was meant to be the opener on our debut album “World Of Black And Silver” in 1999 but our record label boss didn’t agree so it became track number 7. Just like “Extreme Paranoia” this song has been stuck in our set-lists through all the years so there was no doubt about which songs to choose to celebrate the 20-anniversary of our first album. And now finally on the fourth recording of the song I can say that I’m completely satisfied with the result. There’s no need to describe the music because it’s 100% influenced by Running Wild and the song wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Rock ‘n’ Rolf.