Finnish folk metal veterans FINNTROLL have issued the following update:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new Finntroll album! Now we're gonna crack open a couple of beers, listen to the damn thing and relax. Fourteen hour days have finally paid off!

We've booked mastering January 16th! Before that we still have loads to do and enhance. Remember to blow stuff up on New Years Eve!"

The band recently issued the following comments via their studio blog: “Combining our trademark sound with even more influences from non- traditional genres in metal music, we have created 11 songs which show you everything we want to offer. And boy, wasn't that one of the hardest task for some time. After all, how do you keep your sound fresh, yet familiar, after 6 albums and 15 years?

At some point, we were afraid that the songs are not melodic enough. Then we started to fear they became too melodic. Then we let the songs rest for a while and molded them more in a way that the non- melodic stuff got something to hum with, and the cheesy pop- songs were arranged more stripped and aggressive. We were confident, yet sometimes scared what will people think of the stuff we've been doing so hard. What if they hate it? That would be fine, but if they would hate it because the material was uninspiring, boring and done-to-death, that would be a huge disappointment. So, we kept pushing and tried to keep it fresh all the time while still having the ‘this has to be Finntroll because no other band sounds this insane’ - grinning going on.”

Curious how it really sounds? You can listen to some demo snippets here.

Follow the band's extensive studio blog here.