As Colin and the rest of the band have often explained in the past, all the Masses were born out of an accumulation of hardships in their own private lives. But now, there wasn’t anything spectacularly distressing going on. “It didn’t feel like a mass,” Colin says. “It’s a whole different thing. There’s a lot more storytelling, a lot more clean, acoustic parts, Caro is a big part of it too. With this album, a lot of the music was written during the last three years in function of the fire rituals we did in our country.”
Above all else, De Doorn is the album that most reveals the true face of Amenra. Their most genuine expression. It’s as if time, age and maturity has brought them, slowly, from the absolute pitch-black darkness of their beginnings into the light, made them realise the purest reflection of our humanity lies not just in the pain but in the edges that separate light and dark. Colin, kneeling, his back to the audience, screaming in darkness, voice muffled by loud guitars, might just begin to – literally or metaphorically, we will see – finally rise and turn towards his people, receiving their words just like that tree sculpture received Ghent’s people’s words, and echoing them, more clearly, more thoughtfully, speaking from the darkness into the light. That is why Amenra exist, and are so essential, right now. The pain is still there – it’s just not alone anymore. ”Even in the mellow parts, the words are so…” Colin struggles for a description. “They hit you hard with their content. It’s not necessarily negative, but there is a lot of weight involved. Content wise, I believe this is the heaviest album we’ve done. It’s hard as nails in its own beautiful, poetic way.”
