At a first glance, you might think there is not much that connects Colin H. van Eeckhout and Tonnie ‘Broeder’ Dieleman. The former is the frontman for Belgian post-metallers Amenra, a band known for their overwhelming heaviness both in sound and emotion. The latter is a Dutch folk singer whose music is inspired by his Christian upbringing and the rural culture of his Zeelandic homeland. But when the two met, they felt an instant connection.

“As a creating artist, it’s these encounters that you pray for,” says Colin. “As soon as you meet someone like that, you know you have to do something together.”

Their connection was deepened as they discovered how much they had in common, from their similar dialects and their strong ties to their homeland, to their leanings towards the spiritual and the melancholic.

“My work is all about death and sadness,” says Tonnie. “For me, music started with my mother dying; my first album is about her death. That’s a strong connection with Colin, too, as he lost his Dad.”

“It’s like we work with the same clay, even if we make different sculptures,” Colin adds. “The darkness attracts us, yet we work with a hope in our music.”

After performing together at Le Guess Who festival in 2021, Colin and Tonnie wanted to make an album. The result is the 7-track ‘Sober Maal’ (which translates to ‘sober meal’ and refers to the practice of eating a simple meal in order to practice gratitude), which is being released under the moniker De Mannen Broeders. It was written and recorded in under five days at the 17th century church Doopsgezinde Kerk in Haarlem, the Netherlands. Tonnie had performed at the church before, and the owners were happy to let it out.

For the recording session, it was just Tonnie, Colin, a small choir, and two of their collaborators: Amenra’s bassist Tim de Gieter, who recorded and produced the album, and Pim van der Werken on organ and piano.

“We didn’t really know each other at all,” says Colin. “The four of us, in essence, were strangers. But it all clicked together so fast, and it felt so easy, like we had known each other for a decade. It was one of the most interesting recording sessions that I’ve ever done, because it was extremely open.”

The openness and flow that the musicians felt comes across beautifully in the music. Sonically, ‘Sober Maal’ is a haunting, droning, emotionally rich journey that feels rooted in a bygone world while still sounding wholly original, and has a melancholy air yet retains a hopeful feel. Colin and Tonnie’s vocals blend with the choir and a pared-back selection of instruments including a banjo, piano, hurdy gurdy and the powerful central organ – all intermingling with the sounds and echoes of the church.

“We had to keep those sounds in,” Tonnie says, “like footsteps walking across the floor, paper rustling. The church is like an instrument in itself.”

“It felt powerful,” adds Colin. “The church had this vibe that was very inspiring, and it guided us atmospherically.”

When it came to the lyrics, Colin and Tonnie’s shared love for mining the past for inspiration came into play, as they consulted old books and documents. This also influenced the album’s artwork, which has a scrapbook feel – including pages taken from Tonnie’s father’s bible and images of old keys and nails that belonged to Tonnie and Colin’s grandfathers. The cover of the album shows a photograph of Belgian refugees seeking shelter in the very same church after World War I.

“We wanted to take the old days, and connect it to the contemporary times,” Colin explains. The lyrics include old religious hymns, meditative spoken word chants, and odes to inspirational figures – from priest and artist Omèr August Gielliet, to Colin’s own mother. Religious themes are also prevalent throughout: the song ‘Grafschrift’ takes its lyrics from an epitaph that a 18th Protestant pastor wrote for a Catholic priest. Tonnie notes that this caused a scandal at the time, but the pastor defended his right to pay tribute to his friend.

“This [poem] also fit with our voices: two guys duetting,” says Tonnie. “I love that; it’s beautiful. It’s so vulnerable. I think male vulnerability is really important, and it’s a hard thing to come by in our civilisation.”

The message of this song also echoes the bigger picture of Colin and Tonnie’s shared values – of openness, community and connection. They want to reclaim these religious themes and ideas to make them more universal.

“Colin and I both have a knack for spirituality, symbolism, and a need to connect with something bigger than yourself,” says Tonnie. “That can be a God type figure, nature, but also people and community. We’re all just people; there’s no difference between anyone. Amenra talk about ritual spirituality, brotherhood, the Church of Ra, and that’s such an inspiration to me.”

“Religion has a negative connection because it has been a force on people,” Colin says. “Spirituality is something you follow by choice. We like to dive into the ungraspable things in life: it needs to be free to interpret.”