God Of Angels Trust

Album ∙ Metal ∙ 2025

Volbeat

On the Danish rock band’s ninth album, Volbeat singer/guitarist Michael Poulsen abandoned his usual songwriting routine for an anything-goes approach. After taking a year off to recover from his third throat surgery and tour with his death metal band Asinhell, Poulsen reconvened with his Volbeat bandmates—bassist Kaspar Boye Larsen and drummer Jon Larsen—to write the songs for what became God of Angels Trust. “We were not used to that kind of long break,” Poulsen tells Apple Music. “So, when it was time for Volbeat to return, we were filled up with fire and gasoline at the same time. Because it felt like starting over again after that break, we thought maybe we should approach this record like the first Volbeat record, when we didn’t think too much about structure.”

Poulsen tested the theory with “In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan’s Spawn in a Dying World of Doom,” a mouthful of a song that manages to be catchy while having no chorus whatsoever. “I thought, ‘What if there was something else that people were waiting for instead of the chorus?’” Poulsen explains. “With this song, people will just wait for us to say the stupid horror-flick line of the title. And it worked. But after a few songs like that, the other half of my brain took over, the part that knows structure and how to put songs together.” Some of those, like “Acid Rain,” “Time Will Heal,” and the excellent “Lonely Fields,” are about Poulsen’s late father, who passed away in 2008. Below, the singer comments on each track.

“Devils are Awake”
“This song pretty much sums up what the album is all about. If you look at the cover artwork, you see what you assume to be a child sleeping in his bed. In the doorway, looking in, you have a goat. People assume that could be the Devil. A lot of times, the goat is being symbolized as something evil or the Devil. Poor goat, he should sue mankind for all that trouble. But we all know that evil is created by human beings, and they always come in disguises. When we put our kids to bed, they have the freedom to believe the world is just ice cream and unicorns. But outside the doorway, we have the real world.”

“By a Monster’s Hand”
“When people watch the video, they’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s about a serial killer.’ And the serial killer looks like…I won’t mention any names because I don’t want to give that dude any credit for anything. We still have to think about the victims. But back in the day, we managed to put serial killers behind bars and throw away the key. Today, we are watching the serial killers. As soon as we turn on the news, they are speaking to us. And nobody dares do anything.”

“Acid Rain”
“Sometimes I write lyrics that are very direct, and you know exactly what’s going on. But I always like lyrics where you can get maybe three or four different perspectives out of the song. This is mostly about an out-of-body experience, trying to leave your body and let your spirit visit the lost ones that you’re missing out there. For me, it’s about leaving my body to be able to visit my father and let him know what’s going on in my life. And I like to know what’s going on in his, if he has one.”

“Demonic Depression”
“This actually started as a song for my death metal band, Asinhell. But then, suddenly, I had an idea for a chorus that was definitely a Volbeat chorus. So, I decided to make it a Volbeat song, and I’m happy I did that. The song has great energy, but it’s about a very serious subject: depression that gets so ugly, it almost becomes demonic. It’s funny—maybe six or seven of my friends asked me if this song was about them because they really connected with it. But the friend I actually wrote it about called me and just said, ‘Great fucking song, man!’”

“In the Barn of the Goat Giving Birth to Satan’s Spawn in a Dying World of Doom”
“The inspiration here was to do something different, where the chorus is not the highlight or the essence of the song. And then I came up with this funny horror-flick line that is the title, which is actually something I’ve done for a long time. In the rehearsal room, I’ll improvise titles like this for the fun of it—I just never keep any of them. This time I did. But that line, the title of the song, only comes once. It’s the climax. Imagine a stadium or an arena where the crowd is singing that line all together.”

“Time Will Heal”
“There’s a lot of emotional stuff going on in this one. It’s mostly about dealing with loss and accepting that we have good days and bad days. If we can’t embrace the bad days, knowing that’s part of life, how will you ever be able to enjoy the good days? I’ve definitely been dealing with that since I lost my father and different things I’ve been going through in life, where I have to find a balance and not fall into a black hole. For me, I mostly just have to look at my children. Then you suddenly become secondary. It’s not about you.”

“Better Be Fueled Than Tamed”
“Sometimes in life, we can get a little bit too comfortable. I think we might have to be careful about that. It’s great to be comfortable—it’s great to find the peace within yourself where you’re able to manage all the great challenges in life. But I still believe to get the best result in life, you need to be fueled. You need to have that lightning in your heart, where you just never give up. If we get too comfortable or too careless, we’re not really seeing what’s going on around us.”

“At the End of the Sirens”
“Many years ago, we had a song called ‘The Hangman’s Body Count’ on a record called Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies. This song is just another version of that lyrically, where you have Death sitting in his chair in the underground. He has all these screens looking at the city where he is on that day. And he says, ‘Who’s going today?’ When he has decided, he sets off a big siren that everyone in the city can hear. And everybody gets paranoid because they know Death is knocking on the door, saying, ‘It’s time.’”

“Lonely Fields”
“When I was a kid, me and my father would jump on his moped and go out to the fields to pick corn for his birds. I can still smell the apple trees, the pear trees, the grass, and the corn. Where I live now, the view out my window is actually a big cornfield. I had a dream about birds tapping on my window, showing me a silhouette in the cornfield. The silhouette is the spirit of my father, and he’s telling me, ‘Come on, kid. Wake up. We need to pick corn for the birds.’ I leave the bedroom and go out and embrace my dad, and we start picking the corn. After we pick the corn, he tells me I have to go back to my room. But I decide to go with him. And then I wake up.”

“Enlighten the Disorder (By a Monster’s Hand Part 2)”
“This is the continuation of ‘By a Monster’s Hand.’ The serial killer from the earlier song has all the trophies from his victims in his house, but a storm comes and blows away his ceiling. All his trophies, his body parts, are spread across the city. He goes out with his wagon to collect them for a great finale for the puppet theater he’s been doing with the body parts all these years. He’s so high on the idea of being the lead character that he actually starts to cut off his own limbs to be able to fit in the box with the other body parts. He manages to put himself behind bars, and now he doesn’t have the arms to get out.”