2020 was a year that meant standstill for many people. But not for Tom S. Englund. Privately, the Swede entered the harbor of marriage, musically there were two topics in the room: On the one hand, the debut of Silent Skies was released, a project for which Englund teamed up with pianist Vikram Shankar. The other was the new Evergrey album "Escape Of The Phoenix". The two have nothing to do with each other directly, as the musician emphasizes: "The Silent Skies album was already finished three years ago. And my job is also to keep the two things completely apart."
However, both of course reflect his personality as a songwriter, making a mutual influence to some extent inevitable: "The first music I wrote for the album was the piano from 'In The Absence Of Sun'. And I thought: Aha, so this will be an album that is strongly influenced by Silent Skies. But then it didn't develop like that at all ..." By the way, the pandemic didn't play a role in the making of "Escape Of The Phoenix" either - except for the fact that the cancelled trips and tours gave them more time
