{"id":3923,"date":"2012-07-10T10:27:35","date_gmt":"2012-07-10T17:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/?p=3923"},"modified":"2012-07-10T10:30:57","modified_gmt":"2012-07-10T17:30:57","slug":"enslaved-unveil-new-album-title-artwork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/2012\/07\/10\/enslaved-unveil-new-album-title-artwork\/","title":{"rendered":"ENSLAVED Unveil New Album Title & Artwork"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Norwegian progressive extreme metal band ENSLAVED have named their twelfth studio album RIITIIR<\/em> and have unveiled the album artwork.\u00a0 RIITIIR<\/em> is due out in Europe on September 28th<\/span><\/span>\u00a0and in North America on October 2nd.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

From the woods in Sweden, ENSLAVED guitarist\/songwriter\/founding member Ivar Bj\u00f8rnson shares the following:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe album is, as mentioned, entitled \u2018Riitiir\u2019 – a self-made \u2018Norse-ified\u2019 version of the words \u2018Rites\u2019 \/ \u2018Rituals.\u2019\u00a0 RIITIIR = \u2018The Rites of Man,\u2019 to put it in a formulaic and easy way. There is no story with a timeline; again we\u2019ve built structures that lay above the independent lyrics that we feel more comfortable with letting the reader explore, interpret, or simply discard themselves. It is entirely up to them. Meanwhile, we are extremely excited to see what visual artist Truls Espedal<\/a> has come up with this time. The collaboration between him, myself,<\/p>\n

and Grutle [Kjellson, vocalist & bassist] was closer, more understanding and powerful this time than ever before in our more than decade-long cooperation. The album concept and our feelings connected to it hit home instantly with Truls, in the same way that his initial ideas resonated intensely with us from the second he shared them with us. We will, of course, discuss some key concepts and potential interpretations in deeper song-by-song analysis \u2013 but let\u2019s cross that rainbow when we get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-time friend and collaborator Truls Espedal shares the following about his creative process for RIITIIR<\/em>\u2019s album artwork, his 7th<\/sup> cover for ENSLAVED:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis process has become a tradition; a tradition that works very well for me, with a lot of artistic freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst an e-mail or text from the band asking if I\u2019m ready and then a phone conversation with Grutle and Ivar a week prior to us having a meeting.\u00a0 On the phone they give me an album title, some insight into the theme and their ideas, then a brief talk about different visual symbols\/elements which will be incorporated.\u00a0 A week later I\u2019m on a plane to meet them. We spend a day where we discuss\u00a0 the visual ideas I\u2019ve come up with, eat good food, drink\u00a0 and listen to some of the new music. Before I leave, we have agreed about the sketches made during the day.\u00a0 Back home, now with a deadline, I get to work and don\u2019t talk to them before the artwork is finished.<\/p>\n

\u201cENSLAVED\u2019s music is constantly evolving and expanding, and we early on decided that the artwork should reflect this. From my first collaboration with the band on [2001\u2019s] Monumension<\/em> and forward, we have slowly merged different aspects into the work; what we wanted to do now was to further expand and change things up a bit, without losing the connection to earlier work. It still has a strong sense of symbolism, symmetrical compositions and references to Norse art. But there is an even bigger emphasis on realism on RIITIIR<\/em>, which hopefully adds atmosphere to the finished work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the first time I had the whole album to listen to from the get-go. So for more or less 90 percent of all the hours spent in my studio, RIITIIR<\/em> was on constant repeat on the stereo and I truly believe that had a major impact on both the process and the finished result. The music influenced both the whole dynamics in the studio as well as choices made in color palette and atmosphere; it more or less dictated the mood of the paintings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother difference this time was that I\u00a0 switched from acrylic paint to oil painting. So the front and back cover will be my first official ones in oils. This change gave me a challenge when it came to the deadline because of the drying rate and so on, but it felt right for the visual ideas we had decided on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe collaboration with Ivar and Grutle feels even more organic and natural than ever. Even though it is something that is a few years in-between, it always seems like we are on the same page. There are a lot of the thoughts and ideas in their work that I feel can be found in my own private paintings.\u201d<\/p>\n

ENSLAVED\u2019s RIITIIR<\/em> is the follow-up to Axioma Ethica Odini,<\/em> which won the 2010 Spellemann Award<\/a> (the Norwegian equivalent of a U.S. Grammy Award) in the category \u201cBest Metal Album,\u201d won Terrorizer Magazine\u2019s Reader\u2019s Poll for \u201cBest Album of 2010,\u201d ranked #5 in Decibel Magazine\u2019s \u201cTop 40 Extreme Albums of 2010\u201d list, and appeared on over 65 \u201cBest Albums of 2010\u201d lists in North America, repeatedly ranking in the Top 10. \u00a0In Germany, Metal Hammer Magazine awarded ENSLAVED the \u201cAlbum Of The Year\u201d title; Dutch magazine Aardschok ranked Axioma Ethica Odini<\/em> at #9.<\/p>\n

Axioma Ethica Odini<\/em> debuted in North America at #16 on the Billboard Heatseekers (New Artists) chart, #40 in the Current Hard Music Albums chart, and #72 on the Independent Current Albums chart the week following its September 2010 release.<\/p>\n

ENSLAVED will be performing in this year\u2019s Barge To Hell<\/a> cruise from Miami to the Caribbean, beginning on December 3rd<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

Visit ENSLAVED online at www.ENSLAVED.no<\/a>, www.facebook.com\/ENSLAVED<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, and on Twitter.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norwegian progressive extreme metal band ENSLAVED have named their twelfth studio album RIITIIR and have unveiled the album artwork.\u00a0 RIITIIR is due out in Europe on September 28th\u00a0and in North America on October 2nd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3923"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3926,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3923\/revisions\/3926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/metalassault.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}