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JEWELCASE EDITION 

CURRENT REPRESS

CD in jewel case

Carried on the brisk wind of eager rock, with foundations in black, thrash, doom and heavy metal, Astral Fortress is the 2022 album of stellar, eclectic old metal from the legendary Darkthrone.

With a seemingly endless dungeon full of heavy metal influences channelled through Darkthrone’s dynamic riff-machine, plus increasing inspirations taken from their own back catalogue, Darkthrone has become very much its own beast within the metal world. Though sprinkled with atmospheric touches, such as synthesisers and mellotron, the Darkthrone sound remains stripped to the core, primitive and organic.

Astral Fortress was recorded at Chaka Khan Studios in Oslo, the same location used for the Eternal Hails album, with Ole Øvstedal and Silje Høgevold.

From their formation back in 1986, to becoming one of Norways’s finest musical exports (with a number of highly revered black metal masterpieces released in the early 1990s helping to solidify their legacy), Darkthrone has continued to evolve and challenge in equal measure, throughout their illustrious recording career spanning over three decades. And now, the ever-productive duo of Nocturno and Fenriz continue their own metallic saga with a new selection of fine, vintage sounding headbanging classics in the making. 

Gatefold Double LP with golden UV spot laque and 16 pages booklet in 30x30cm with illustrations and lyrics.

3rd press on black vinyl

2018 re-release in black gatefold vinyl by AOP Records.
Artworks are done from the original photo used on the highly limited digipack from 2012

Marrok shares his very personal vision of serious art influenced by a wide range of genres. It's a blackened journey full of soundscapes between beauty and bleakness, hope and oppression, reality and the world beyond. Accordingly, each subgenre is utilized to its fullest potential without falling into cliche nor easy categorization, each one swelling until it's fit to burst, so overcome with passion and emotion.
 

Waldgeflüster: Atmospheric. Powerful. Matured.
With powerful riffs and a unique soundscape, paired with intense lyrics, Waldgeflüster has always created an unmistakable closeness to nature and emotion. Matured over the years and after four years of work, a new double album is now available: “Knochengesänge” and “Knochengesänge II”, which is dedicated to the carousel of thoughts on the subject of mortality and legacy. Born from the same DNA and fragments, the two parts take different paths in how they present themselves. Detail-loving and densely composed, Waldgeflüster captivates listeners musically and intellectually, offering the chance to experience the same pieces in different variants — deep, emotional, and powerful.

Welcome to Part II. This was a project dear to my heart. While our main musical outlet is still black metal, all of us are listening to a lot of different genres and I am always fascinated by the emotional impact other forms of music can have on my soul. This is an experiment. To walk outside of the known paths, to search for other means of expression and to look at our songs of “Knochengesänge” from a different angle. We tried to tear everything down to its basic core and to create something new and different from the ruins of these songs. Every tune on this record has its root in Part I, but at least for some of it the ruins were reformed into something completely different. The idea and the feeling at its core are still the same, but the result hopefully gives you a different perspective. We know this record is a challenge. To you, the listeners. But it also was a challenge for us.