Retribution (Nightingale album)

Vocalist and guitarist Dan Swanö commented on Retribution:

I felt that, unless it is the best possible Nightingale album, where every song on the album easily could replace any song from our previous albums, there was no point in making a new album at all. During the writing of the Witherscape debut album, I wrote a lot of stuff that would work better on a Nightingale album, and before I knew it, I had the skeleton for a lot of potentially awesome Nightingale songs! It was important that the new material had the vibe of the older albums, yet with a better production and performance. I am very confident that all the Nightingale fans will love Retribution since I made sure I felt the same rush inside me when I listened to the tracks that I did upon listening to the finished version of our most famous tracks from the past!^[4]

Swanö also elaborated on the song "Forevermore" and "On Stolen Wings":

"Forevermore" is a track that showcases both the metal and the more bombastic A.O.R. influences of Nightingale. It's a good summary of what to expect from the album... and then some! The lyrics tell the story of Jim Jones and The People's Temple seen from the perspective of a devoted follower of the cult.^[1]

After all the demos were done for the album, we gathered in the rehearsal room and gave them all a thorough spin. It took some time to get the arrangement right for "On Stolen Wings" and during the intense rehearsals there were a few "happy accidents" that completely changed the vibe of the song into something that I had been searching for all along. The lyrics deal with the kind of person that sucks the lifeblood out of creative people, that doesn't know how to bring their visions to the real world and then steal their ideas and then take full credit for it.^[6]