The Norwegian classic rooted, melancholic black metal by Enslaved has been alive for nearly 30 years. The band is celebrating their 25th anniversary together and have released their new killer record The Sleeping Gods. We chatted with Ivar Bjornson. The album has the majority of tracks sung in Norwegian, and dates back to tracks from unreleased EP’s check out his words on this new album and the work it took to record:

Hostile Jo- “Hello Ivar, it’s a pleasure chatting with you, the master of black metal. This is now 25 years since Enslaved was started, and wok has been done on a fairly consistent basis. What the work for this new album The Sleeping Gods an easy task?”

Ivar- “Thank you, It was a hard one actually. Since we are an independent label and we fund our records ourselves, we needed to budget everything, from the recording, prints, production and touring. We wanted the proper print of the record.”

HJ- “That can be a challenge or cause some delay, is this a wide world release?”

Ivar- “Yes, it is a world wide release, it consists of 2 EPs ranging from to tracks on previousalbums we had written and were pretty much ready to just get done. We had a bunch of people asking for a release of material by us, our fans and friends love our music so we decided to work on this limited edition album.”

HJ- “Yea, that is true, we haven’t heard any new material from the purveyors of black metal. The record sells on Ebay, and some people take advantage of it by ripping off the artists, sort of pisses me off, what are your thoughts?”

Ivar- “Yea, we did the compilation of this album for that reason, people sell the EP on Ebay or the Internet alone for impressive amount of money its horrible, because that is our work. So we decided to compile tracks together and do our own release to make sure credit is paid where is due. So I rather release this album on my own label, so people wont sell the old EP’s for more money than what it should be.”

HJ- “How was the recording process?”

Ivar- “We got lucky, we had work from 7-8 years and this album was just gathering those riffs, songs and making it happen. We had already done the work, we just needed the funding, that is why it took this long for us to release The Sleeping Gods.”

HJ- “Now, there is a different twist and many metal heads are not use to it, the album is sung in Norwegian language only, it’s a pretty cool thing we think. Tells us about this take.”

Ivar- “We have incorporated a lot of music and styles from old times, Enslave has always stayed to the Norwegian roots. But we do have surprises for fans.”

HJ- “Are there any tours coming up or special performances?”

Ivar- “Yes, we have two dates planned in December in New York City. December 9th and December 10th at The Gramercy Theater to be exact. Our show in NY, we will have Selvik a friend of mine doing a solo performance. I will also take part on it. I will be doing a set with more ambiance, electronic sounds with Steve Austin from Today is The Day. The set will consists of tracks from 1991-2014, will have a few beers mingle with fans then hit the stage again for track of the new album.”

HJ- “What else will be available that night in terms of entertainment?”

Ivar- “We will expose fans to many things, some surprises, we will play stuff we haven’t in a long time.”

HJ- “Any possible plans on touring more extensively?”

Ivar- “After the US we might another show, but we will be focusing on writing new work. We will be doing a lot of writing all of 2017 with possible release on 2018 followed by some touring.”

HJ- “Will you write most songs in Norwegian again on the new album?”

Ivar- “If I had to guess, currently we would like to do about 20 percent in Norwegian.”

HJ- “I like that, it will give it more of a true feel to the music. See I enjoy the languages, listening to bands sing in their native language allows my brain to travel to the land where the music is made. It opens up a portal and allows me to visit the depicted images sung in Norwegian. At least that is how I look at it.”

Ivar- “Ah, that is an interesting way of looking at it, I have never thought of it that way.”

HJ- “We thank you for the time and hope to see you in NY in one of your performances.”

Ivar- “Thank you for your time.”

That was a quick one, but loaded with raw material something different, Ivar is ready to tour, but most importantly he is ready to write new material with aims to release something brutal in 2018. Those are not speculations, the man him self said it and we will be waiting to hear new work by Enslaved. The band also re-released their album Vikinglig check that out. 

Interview By: Hostile Jo

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