Norwegian heavy metal trio Coffin Storm have unveiled a brand-new video today for their blistering track ‘Open The Gallows’. The 10 minute epic, taken from their 2024 debut album Arcana Rising, comes alongside a brilliant new video by Matthew Vickerstaff steeped in medieval and supernatural brutality.
Featuring Kolbotn veterans Apollyon (Aura Noir, Lamented Souls) and Bestial Tormentor (Infernö, Lamented Souls), the lineup is completed by Fenriz of Darkthrone on vocals.
Speaking on the new video and his inspiration behind the track, Apollyon said, “Open The Gallows is the longest track I have ever made. Initially we were thinking instrumental old Metallica style with loads of guitar melodies and shit. Apart from the opening/ending though, there’s not much Metallica in there. The main riff is Kreator-inspired if anything. Fortunately, we ended up having Fenriz sing on it after all because the vocal lines are amazing.
This being an all Kolbotn project we invited Arild from Obliteration/Abhorration/Necromantheon/Black Viper to do a legendary long-ass guitar lead as well.
Either way I thought the song deserved a video and Mr Matthew Vickerstaff came up with this idea to use clips from old B-movies. He did a fantastic job with collecting and editing, making it an exciting 10 minutes plus watch. Enjoy!”
On the prospect of new material in the future, Apollyon says:
“Arcana Rising seemed to go down really well with people, and we have plenty of material left in the vaults for an album number two, and always new ideas coming also, so work is progressing slowly but surely amid all the other things we have going on currently. Keep your eyes peeled!”
Metal Hammer – “When riffs are this good, why not draw them out a bit? A career-best performance”
Powerplay – 10/10 “nothing less than greatness”
Metal Talk –“Coffin Storm’s debut is an album that every fan of Doom-tinged Metal should hear”
Metal Sucks – 4.5/5 – “Coffin Storm have created a whopper of an album …. This one comes highly recommended”
New Album ‘It Beckons Us All’ Released Tomorrow, Friday April 26
Ahead of the eagerly awaited new album It Beckons Us All from Darkthrone, the band give fans a final tease of what is awaiting them with the release of the official video for “The Bird People Of Nordland”. Video created by Matthew Vickerstaff .
Whilst freely admitting the concept for the song “Not a very metal subject, sorry!” Fenriz explains “ it’s about the EIDER bird and Nordland. Many years ago I saw a Norwegian documentary with the symbiotic relationship the coast people of Nordland had with the bird. They watched over the nests and in return could pick the eider for pillows clothing, warmth etc. So that is what the lyrics are about.” But, he continues “again, this is Ted’s song so a bit hard for me to comment on it musically but I will tell you all what I think when I hear it:
First of we have a typical grim Ted riff for the verse, then he surprises with a catchy riff for the refrain AND THEN comes my fave part of the album; the post-refrain riff which sounds like Queensryche 1984 style and you can also hear how much we enjoy to play it! EXACTLY where I want to be! Could have played that riff for 8 minutes straight, haha! This loops again with the refrain again without singing and then back to Queensryche ’84. Then first riff again with my added harmony guitar playing on it, what our studio man Ole Øvstedal called “the Corleone part.
A break arrives and then things are sped up (not faster than Yardbirds in 64, we are not an extreme metal band, more like MODERAT EPIC) which corresponds with a slower heavy metal riff where we also brought out the mellotrone if I remember correctly.
Then Ted bombs you with a final part, primitive d-beat thrash with a riff that sounds like Tom G Warrior made it and I also ordered Ted to lay on some hellish guitars. Anyway, I LIVE for that queensryche 84 riff, Ted!”
photo courtesy of Peer Olav Kittilsen
Humble as ever Nocturno Culto states“Well, AGAIN, talking about our music really blows or is very difficult, at least for me. Personally, music is a floating thing, and I am having a hard time to try to break it down. It´s metal, a bit of heavy/doom/black/thrash, that is Darkthrone now, mixing genres has been something we have done since A Blaze, and especially since 2005. And I am just looking forward on new material, new riffs and ideas.”
Just one more sleep until It Beckons Us All, Darkthrone’s new masterpiece, is unleashed in full!
Limited Edition Deluxe boxed edition: includes It Beckons Us All on CD, an exclusive corona vinyl LP & cassette and art prints all housed in a heavy duty lift off lid box
Limited edition ‘Fenriz’ edition LP on blue marble coloured vinyl– exclusively available through the Peaceville stores – VERY FEW COPIES LEFT!!
Limited edition ‘Nocturno Culto’ edition LP on grey marble coloured vinyl–available through the Peaceville stores
Plus other limited edition coloured vinyl LPs are available in stores across the world – cream white, crystal clear, petrol and .. a collectors dream .. if you can find them!
A SPELLBINDING CHRONICLE OF SEDUCTIVE FROZEN ATMOSPHERES AND FEARLESS INNOVATION
Pioneers of a sound that changed the world. Lifelong disciples of suspense and mystery. An enigmatic duo like no other, hell-bent on haunting souls through the eternities. There are many things Darkthrone have been called since forming in 1986 and these are but a few, having drawn from a creative well so potent and powerful it turned them into one of Norway’s biggest musical exports. Following from their debut album Soulside Journey, the next three full-lengths, often referred to as ‘the unholy three’, set the benchmark for black metal in the early 90s, though in truth they’ve never been the kind to rest on such laurels – distilling elements of vintage punk, doom, thrash and death into their own sonic fingerprint and continuing to test that equation throughout the years. It’s been quite the journey, having won cryptic pair Nocturno and Fenriz legions of loyal fans around the world. This tradition will only continue with latest masterpiece It Beckons Us All.
Set for release on Peaceville on 26th April 2024, the new music is an intense observation of the world around them – exciting and challenging the listener in equal measure, in the way only they can. Some of the riffs howl across a gallery of ice and snow while others crackle like a volcano awakening from its timeless slumber, Nocturno’s demonic barks ricocheting across the intoxicating structures almost like it’s beaming from a long-distant galaxy. As Darkthrone have shown us so many times in the past, their music is as visual as it gets – evoking tangible imagery through the medium of sound. Whether the ideas are sombre, reflective or incensed, they exist as emotional concepts you can see and feel as much as you hear.
“I am having difficulties putting into words my personal feelings around the existential title It Beckons Us All, I can only hope others out there can feel the darkness that encompasses it,” muses Fenriz.
Fenriz
Never afraid to venture beyond the confines of the extreme metal template they were paramount in creating, there are moments on It Beckons Us All that will dazzle and surprise, as well as satisfy fans of old.
Nocturno comments: “We recorded in the manner we always do, live, meaning drums and guitar, with another guitar added later. We found a new twist during this process that surely benefited this album. Fenriz did stellar clean vocals on several songs, and his way of thinking creatively made it so good. We also shared the bass work this time around. We added a lot of extra layers like solo guitars… it was just a cauldron of ideas. Instead of finding a plug-in or choir synth patch, we both recorded four vocal tracks each. Darkthrone is an ever-evolving band, as many should know by now, and this album is touching a bit into the heavy genre. I have no idea what genre we are, and have really not cared much about it, but I know for sure it’s metal.”
Nocturno Culto photo courtesy of Peer Olav Kittilsen
In that sense,It Beckons Us Allis very much demonstrative of two visionaries at their world-commanding best. They know what works but more importantly they choose to grow, throwing every ounce of their hearts and souls into evolving the jaw-dropping whirlpool of noise that could only ever have come from their collective minds. There are clean guitars, clean vocals and less typical instruments thrown into the mix, but the approach, intent and ethos at the heart of their fearless artistry remains very much the same. This is music for dreamers who find themselves paralysed by the contrasting beauty and ugliness in the world surrounding them. Never ones to appease the faint-hearted, Darkthrone are as real and human as it gets.
Limited Edition Deluxe boxed edition: includes It Beckons Us All on CD, an exclusive corona vinyl LP & cassette and art prints all housed in a heavy duty lift off lid box
Limited edition ‘Fenriz’ edition LP on blue marble coloured vinyl– exclusively available through the Peaceville stores
Limited edition ‘Nocturno Culto’ edition LP on grey marble coloured vinyl–available through the Peaceville stores
CD
LP
Digital
Plus other limited edition coloured vinyl LPs are available in stores across the world – cream white, crystal clear, petrol and .. a collectors dream .. if you can find them!
Overlooking the ancient lands of sensational heavy metal, Norway’s Coffin Storm is the new band consisting of a trio of Kolbotn veterans, with the line-up of Apollyon (Aura Noir/Lamented Souls) and Bestial Tormentor (Infernö/Lamented Souls) completed by Darkthrone’s Fenriz on vocal duties.
Fenriz explains the origins of the band: “Kolbotn is a hilly forest-y place directly south of Oslo, Norway. When Ole Jørgen and Olav and me grew up there in the 80s we had easy access to all the metal in the massive amounts of record stores in Oslo. Olav and Ole Jørgen started playing doom metal together in the 90s (Lamented Souls) but in 2020 they teamed up again and making riffs in the slow thrash/doom/classic heavy metal style. When the songs started to take form, Ole Jørgen took his place on the drum throne and soon started to record them. Wanting it to be a 100% Kolbotn project, they asked if I wanted to lay down vocals for it and after a couple of sessions in 2021 and 2022 COFFIN STORM was born.”
Apollyon adds “Me and Bestial Tormentor have been playing together since we met in college in 1990 and formed the doom metal act Lamented Souls. However with most members being busy with other bands LS kind of faded away. Our last rehearsal was around 2007.
After I had stopped playing live with Aura Noir we decided to meet up weekly and play guitar together. It was not going to be Lamented Souls and we had no serious plans of any kind. – but as songs were starting to emerge I switched to drums and we made recordings that Bestial Tormentor played to Fenriz, who apparently approved! I would never have dared to ask him to do the vocals! I was considering doing them myself but he was secretly our first choice. Fortunately Bestial Tormentor popped the question and he said yes, so we recorded 3 songs with an extra pair of drum mics(4 in total )in the rehearsal place. Added bass and guitar in my house and went to Fenriz’ to record the vocals. Then we had two more sessions before the album was finished.
Initially I was assuming the music would be doom metal. I think all of us had “Epicus Doomicus Metallicus” in mind but even if our songs are slow/mid tempo, the riffs ended up being more thrashy than I had expected. Only the title track is pure doom simply because it’s a song me and Bestial Tormentor made some 20 years ago that we were über eager to hear Fenriz’ ravishing vocal lines on.”
And so the first fruits of their toil manifest in the form of debut album, ‘Arcana Rising’, with a sterling concoction of classic heavy metal, slow thrash and doom. The result is a torrent of rousing, accomplished titanic riffing from both Apollyon & Bestial Tormentor, commandeered by Fenriz’s unmistakable vocal prowess as witnessed with his own Isengard project as well as multiple Darkthrone releases, with vocal inspiration summoned from bands such as Agent Steel.
Having exclusively premiered the first track “Over Frozen Moors” on the Fenriz Metal Pact Podcast he comments on the single “Right off the bat it’s a chunky 1984 style Exodus verse riff followed by a myriad of melodics in a levitating refrain. The middle of the song just proceeds with an even more killer slow-thrash riff and a surprising vocal part baked into it which gives the song an added epic layer. For the heaviness of the rhythm shift in the closing part I just have one thing to say: Wait for it!..”
‘Arcana Rising’ contains six sprawling metallic epics covering the 45 minute running time, and was recorded at a variety of studios in the band’s native Norway, with work originally commencing back to 2021. With production overseen by Apollyon himself, ‘Arcana Rising’ truly channels & encapsulates the spirit of the 80s, with inspiration from such masters of metal as Candlemass, Pentagram, Metallica & early Kreator, with musical nods to early Paradise Lost & Cathedral from the more extreme side of the doom spectrum, as well as including traces of the DNA from Apollyon & Bestial Tormentor’s own prior work together with their cult doom act Lamented Souls, to create a sensational and majestic opus.
Mastering work was completed by Jack Control at Enormous Door (Darkthrone), and cover art appears courtesy of Polish artist Maciej Kamuda.
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