Urne: “The last album was bleak. I want people to rejoice to this one. It’s like a religious experience”

Almost a year after Urne had released their superb second album A Feast On Sorrow, ostensibly out of nowhere, Joe Nally received a pair of interview requests that would pull his swirling creative outlook sharply into focus.

Processing the pain of seeing family members succumbing to degenerative illness and reckoning of the empty chill of the great hereafter, that heartbreaking monochrome masterpiece had confirmed the London metallers as a very good band. But being asked to revisit its unfiltered pain again confirmed the next step needed to be different.

“Those interviewers wanted to discuss the subject matter specifically,” the frontman recalls. “That album was bleak: musically, lyrically, visually. It all seemed so new to these people who’d just discovered it. But it wasn’t new to me. That helped me realise we needed to not write another album so soon about the darker subjects of life.

“I didn’t want to bring new songs into our set dragging up those feelings onstage. Early on, we knew this album needed to be positive for us as people, not just in the music that we were making but in how we’re trying to move forward in this band.”

Setting Fire To The Sky is a striking realisation. After A Feast On Sorrow’s melancholic conclusion, surging first track Be Not Dismayed is a tellingly-titled change of pace. Compared to the uncomfortably raw emotions of AFOS, the savagery here is served with swagger, and profound ruminations on legacy and empowerment delivered with mythologised grandiosity.

“In my mind, I wanted a photo of a woman against blue skies and bright sun at the top of the Alps,” Joe smiles. “I love photography. But they had to tell me that wasn’t going to happen. Discussing my vision for the artwork, I explained that it had to be a figure holding a flame against this bright blue sky, it had to be a female figure reflecting how we’ve all been raised by those strong women, and it had to symbolise that hope that one person can change everything in a dark world.

“It’s not fire as a destructive force, it’s about positive power like the sun. Being higher than the mountains is all about hope and not losing sight of the light. My life is still a bit of a nightmare at the moment, but it’s good to have that hopeful focus – not that we’re going all Creed, singing ‘Take me higher’ or anything like that!”

Echoes from history reverberate through these eight tracks. Lyrics frequently allude to Egyptian sun worship and the pagan fascination with fire. Towards The Harmony Hall imagines a primeval pull towards the titular geologic cathedral deep in Mexico’s Cheve cave system. Titles such as Weeping To The World and The Spirit, Alive evoke the traditional Christian imagery with which Joe is familiar, but the sense of spirituality here is far more universal.

“It’s not about religion,” he nods. “It’s about the strength of the human spirit. I grew up with a religious background, but it’s something I’ve not believed in for a long time. Spirituality is still important to me, though. A lot of Celtic poetry and those old passing-over songs like The Parting Glass, The Night Visiting Song and Carrickfergus have been very influential on our last two albums in quite different ways.

“I wanted this album to be a bit more anthemic. It needed to be something for people to sing along to and rejoice. It’s like a religious experience, the sense of [communion] you capture in that. Be Not Dismayed is about the first time I walked into the a gig and sensed that buzz. The first time I went to the London Astoria, it felt like a kind of temple. The lyric ‘No fear when the lights go out’ isn’t about death, it’s about when the lights go down at a Slayer show!”

That’s not the only nod to metal’s colourful past. The description of ‘setting fire to the sky’ itself is borrowed from Ronnie James Dio’s autobiography Rainbow In The Dark. He used the metaphor to describe watching his old Rainbow bandmate Ritchie Blackmore playing guitar, and all the colour and light that flowed from his instrument.

A decade-and-a-half since Dio’s passing, Joe remains passionate about highlighting the enduring impact of his heroes, with aforementioned highlight The Spirit, Alive and The Ancient Horizon both harking back to fading pages from heavy music’s history books. It’s also why in a 2025 full of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath covers, Urne opted for a leftfield version of I from 1992’s Dio-led Dehumanizer.

“We recorded I before Ozzy’s passing,” Joe explains. “As important as it was to pay tribute to him, we wanted to more broadly mark the end of Black Sabbath, where there were so many great singers from Dio to Tony Martin. Last year also marked 15 years since Dio’s death and I was a song I’ve wanted to record for almost 20. It’s so heavy, almost comically heavy. And Dio sounds so wicked, this little five-foot-three guy who sounds like the giant as he says he is in the lyrics.

“Learning to sing that song, with different mouth shapes and microphone positions fed back into how we recorded the album. More than referencing our heroes musically, though, it’s about making sure their stories aren’t forgotten. New music is so important, but so is not forgetting where it came from.”

Growing comfortable was equally integral to Joe’s journey. Final track Breathe, for instance, was a song that he began writing 13 years ago, and it was fleshed out as a sort of tribute to his earlier self, a youngster whose bold exterior masked loneliness inside. And after having decamped to New York to record with Gojira’s Joe Duplantier last time out, the decision to record with old mucker and SikTh vocalist Justin Hill in and around London was another return to his roots.

“Working in New York was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but at the end of the day I was starstruck for two weeks,” Joe smiles. “Here, I was literally just chilling out with one of my best mates. One day, Justin got some bad family news and we just took the day to relax and chat. Others, I’d be messing with him with made-up stories about how he was Kerrang!’s Man Of The Year in 2002. I think the relaxation we felt shows in our best-ever performances.”

Relationships with Gojira and the broader metal world remain healthy. The I cover was released alongside standalone single Throes Of Grief featuring Tim Öhrström of Swedish heavyweights Avatar. Harken The Waves, meanwhile, was created with Mastodon giant Troy Sanders.

“Our original idea was having Ville Valo sing on Breathe,” Joe unpacks. “Unfortunately he’s a very private guy and not so available. So then we thought about having someone on Harken The Waves. Troy loved the idea. He asked what we wanted and we said, ‘How about six verses?’ Because if you’re going to get someone of that level, you may as well use them. Troy just seemed incredibly chuffed to have been asked.

“Jo Quail features on Breathe, too. We asked if she would write an instrumental piece to go with the song and she sent us back like 30 different parts to put together or take apart as we wanted. Of course, we used it all. She’s at the very top of her field and a lovely human being to boot!”

Excellent as it is to have the patronage of peers and support of their heroes, it feels like Urne are still waiting for the acclaim from the broader metal community that they truly deserve. Gathering momentum, their 2026 should change that. With drummer James Cook having settled in, the addition of second guitarist Kurtis Bagley after recording on Setting Fire To The Sky has fleshed out their live sound, and Joe is excited about the potential for “Mustaine and Friedman” style six-string interplay as they begin to write as a quartet.

“I feel like Alex Ferguson when he was at Manchester United,” the frontman laughs. “We had one person we wanted, and we got our guy.” And opening for Orange Goblin on the stoner legends’ final UK tour in December put Urne’s name back on fans’ lips. With no shortage of belief in their abilities, it’s just about knuckling down and clocking up the miles.

“The past 12 months have seen me play the fewest shows I have since starting to play in a band,” Joe wraps up. “We just have to get back to playing as many shows and festivals as possible. I’d love to have a legacy like Orange Goblin, and although we’re quite different musically, we share the passion, the knowledge and the desire to be truthful to ourselves. The truth is that we’re not going to make it on the basis of our looks. We’re not going to become major TikTok stars.

“We’re going to have to do it the honest way, winning people over one show at a time…”

Setting Fire To The Sky is out now via Spinefarm

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