Forked Tongues – From The Vastland
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There is something seductive about darkness when it has a history.
On Servant of Ahriman, From the Vastland returns to the ancient Persian epic Shahnameh, drawing on the story of Zahhak: a figure whose transformation from man to monster is less a story of simple evil than one of temptation, manipulation, and surrender – a story that captures the catastrophic and stratigraphic times of current humanity.
Across nine albums, cultural necromancer Sina Winter has forged a language in which the cold, hostile grammar of Norwegian black metal collides with the mythology and historical memories of Iran. Yet by now, this collision feels less like a meeting of two worlds than the sound of one world birthed, entirely its own entity, and guided by a creator possessed of the rare gift of being one of few storytellers equipped to speak for it.
Servant of Ahriman is perhaps most compelling when it allows that identity to breathe. The tremolo-picked fury and blast-beat violence remain firmly rooted in the Norwegian tradition, but around them are moments of shrouded atmosphere, Persian instrumental passages, and a meticulously conjured sense of narrative movement. This is black metal concerned not simply with darkness, but with how darkness takes hold.
We spoke to Sina about identity, mythology, corruption and the uncomfortable question at the heart of the album: what happens when power is gained at the cost of freedom?
After nine albums, how do you balance the established sound and identity of From the Vastland with the need to still challenge yourself? Did Servant of Ahriman take you somewhere musically that you hadn’t expected?
“I would say for Servant of Ahriman, the challenge was finding new ways to express the story within that established sound and identity. Because it was a concept album, and it was about a story that is very important, personally for me and for a lot of other Iranians, so the narrative itself gave me the reason to explore different moods and dynamics through the album while keeping the recognizable elements of From the Vastland like the Norwegian black metal foundation, the atmosphere, the aggressive riffing, and the Persian historical/mythological themes. So, basically there is an evolution there but without abandoning the identity of the band.”
The distinction is important. Evolution here does not mean carving out reinvention for its own sake. The album is not interested in shedding the skin that From the Vastland has spent so many years cultivating. Instead, it stretches until something darker begins to blister through.
“For the second part, I’d say yes, it did but again without changing the musical style, but because the story demanded certain things from the music, I let it do so. Good examples are those Persian instrumental pieces in between the songs, you know. The album goes further into emotional and atmospheric territory.”
This guided movement into territory less travelled is where the album becomes particularly intriguing. There is brutality here, certainly, but also restraint. Sina coaxes the listener deeper into the dark, his music illuminating a suffocating, mythic stillness rather than dispelling it.
The violence recedes. The darkness isn’t always screaming. Sometimes it is simply lying in wait.
Your music has always existed at an interesting intersection between Persian mythology and primal Norwegian black metal. After more than a decade working within that inimitable tradition, do you feel those two influences have now fused into one identity, or is that tension between them still important to the music?
“When I started From the Vastland, I could perhaps describe it as bringing Persian mythology into a Norwegian black metal framework. But after more than a decade, those things have become part of the same musical identity for me. The Norwegian side provides the musical language like the rawness, aggression, atmosphere, tremolo-picked riffs, blast beats, darkness etc. and the Persian side provides much of the subject matter, imagery, mythology, storytelling, and sometimes melodic or instrumental colours.”
It is a fearsome symbiosis: one tradition provides the language; the other gives it something ancient to say.
“The Persian influence is much deeper because the stories themselves determine what I’m writing about, but I think at this point, they mostly aren’t two separate influences anymore, however, at some level, that tension is still there, and I think it always will be.”
On Servant of Ahriman, you focus not simply on “evil” itself but on Zahhak’s gradual corruption and deception. What drew you to that process, and how did you translate that slow descent into the music?
“The interesting thing about Zahhak isn’t simply that he’s a monster or evil. He’s corrupted. He’s deceived. He’s manipulated. And he becomes something monstrous. The story is also very symbolic or metaphoric, you know. That makes the story much more interesting. Zahhak isn’t simply an evil tyrant. There is a transformation, a progression in his story. You know, temptation, deception and power. Ahriman (the Persian devil) uses Zahhak. That idea of manipulation and becoming an instrument of something darker is more disturbing than straightforward evil. So, musically, that gave me the opportunity to gradually change the atmosphere, throughout the album and within each song.”
That unresolved friction is precisely what keeps the music dangerous. The tension isn’t something to overcome; it is where the album draws its power, illuminating the darkest corners of Sina’s songwriting.
The album moves between the relentless brutality of Norwegian black metal and much more suffocating, otherworldly, passages. Was that contrast something you deliberately built into the record, or did the songs naturally lead you there?
From the beginning I knew that the album needed different atmospheres because I’m telling an entire story rather than writing eight unrelated black metal songs (I did the same thing in 2020 when I released my first concept album “The Haft Khan”) but once I started writing individual songs, the music itself would naturally determine where those contrasts belonged.”
This choice makes the album’s pacing feel less like ornamentation and more conceptual architecture. The quieter passages do not dilute the violence; they create the heavy shadows required for the onslaught to achieve its full, predatory weight – an intentionality that Sina expands upon as he traces the album’s progression:
“I didn’t want to just have the contrast for variety but wanted it to serve the narrative. The music needed to breathe differently at different points. So, the concept gave me the framework, but the songs ultimately dictated how and where the contrasts were going to be.”
Servant of Ahriman doesn’t simply present a collection of songs about Zahhak; it asks the music to participate in his transformation.
Zahhak is ultimately a servant, an instrument of Ahriman’s will, which seems almost antithetical to black metal’s traditional emphasis on autonomy and individualism. Was that contradiction something you were conscious of when developing the album’s concept?
“True that black metal traditionally carries ideas of individuality, rebellion and freedom but in this story, Zahhak becomes powerful precisely because he submits himself to another force.”
That contradiction sits at the centre of Servant of Ahriman. Black metal has traditionally romanticised the outsider – the figure who refuses submission, rejects authority and stands apart from the collective. Zahhak offers a darker inversion of that mythology: a man who gains extraordinary power by surrendering the very autonomy that power appears to promise.
“Ahriman gives him power, but that power comes at the price of becoming an instrument. So Zahhak can be interpreted almost as a warning about the loss of autonomy and individualism. He thinks he is becoming more powerful, but in reality, he is becoming more controlled.”
The paradox is devastatingly simple. The closer Zahhak gets to power, the further he moves from himself.
“So, the more powerful Zahhak becomes externally, the less free he becomes internally. And I think that’s much more interesting than trying to make Zahhak fit neatly into the traditional black metal archetype of the rebellious individual. Basically, Servant of Ahriman is telling the story of how someone becomes a servant.”
And perhaps that is the album’s most unsettling idea: that servitude does not always arrive wearing the face of weakness. Sometimes it arrives dressed as power.
A+
AVZD
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