Enslaved, Norway’s progressive and frostbitten sons, are gearing up for a new album. Their thirteenth offering does not have a title yet, but the songs are shaping up fast.
Enslaved took their first music steps around 1991. Starting as a top-quality black metal band, the change of millennia found them experimenting with different sound pallets and song-writing approaches. Their latest album, 2012’s Riitiir, saw them nominated for a Spellemann Award (the Swedish equivalent of the American Grammy) for the seventh time. They did not receive the award after all (they have received four such awards in the past).
Regarding the upcoming album, guitarist and main songwriter Ivar Bjørnson had this to say: “Now the season of creative madness, endless days, and bleeding fingertips is upon us again… O joy! As before, it is the unholy trinity that forms the first line of attack: I (guitar), Grutle (Kjellson, bass & vocals), and Cato (Bekkevold, drums), are recording the foundations of the album live, while Ice Dale (lead guitar) and Herbrand (Larsen, vocals & keys) will add their instruments and voice in their own studios after these initial core sessions. Then I will add some wackiness at my home studio, before we all get together again to finish it.
I feel that I have delivered basic material that is rock solid. I have poured my very life and heart into these compositions while the rest of the band have refined it, shaped it, and delivered it like their very lives depended on it. It has been challenging to keep up the pace with the way the songs wanted to go; life flows its ways and takes its turns regardless of your artistic ambitions. However, the music led the way through the fog and I just followed, and never doubting the oncoming album for a second.”
Enslaved’s thirteenth album will be available early in 2015 via Nuclear Blast.