Andy Marshall is the sole architect behind SAOR, the Glasgow-based one-man project that has spent more than a decade redefining what atmospheric black metal can sound like when filtered through the landscapes of the Scottish Highlands. With Amidst the Ruins — his most compositionally ambitious record to date — still fresh in listeners' minds, Marshall sat down with The MetalList to talk about Scottish history, creative process, the politics of independence, his unshakeable support for Ukraine, and why he absolutely does not like whisky.

The MetalList returns after a long hiatus, and our first piece is a conversation with one of the most compelling voices in contemporary extreme metal. 1914 are a Lviv band who turned meticulous WWI archive research into their own musical language. In November 2025, they released Viribus Unitis — their fourth album, recorded during the full-scale invasion, with one guitarist having joined the military just before the studio sessions. At the end of March the band sets out on their first proper European tour in five years, and in May comes Maryland Deathfest in the US — if the American bureaucracy finally backs down. We talked about everything: from archive work and the book inside the deluxe edition to vinyl collecting, dungeon synth and gorgonopsids. We're glad this conversation became the first after our return.

It's been almost two and a half years since we interviewed Tony, SONATA ARCTICA's leader. During this period the band toured the world, the album "Unia" went gold, and moreover SONATA ARCTICA visited russia for the first time. Now with less than a month until the release of the new album "The Days of Grays", we were able to talk to Henrik, the band's keyboardist.