The wait is almost over. Black/epic metal pioneers, Darkwoods My Betrothed, cloak the world in a veil of damnation with their third single and final harbinger of doom and destruction, "Black Fog And Poison Wind", cut from their striking upcoming album, Angel Of Carnage Unleashed, to be revealed this Friday, November 12. The Finnish foursome, now featuring Tuomas Holopainen as a full member of the band and Kai Hahto (both Nightwish) as session drummer, delivers this final teaser alongside an intriguing lyric video.

The record's final song, “Black Fog And Poison Wind”, offers an appropriate, hard-hitting and thunderous ending to the long-awaited comeback album of the Black Metal horde Darkwoods My Betrothed. The song features mad, high-pitched screams, evil riffing, mind-blowing blastbeats and eerie choirs. After 23 years of silence, the vicious new offering, Angel Of Carnage Unleashed, sets free some of the fastest and most diabolic songs of the band's history - a sonic monster combining aggression, haunting soundscapes, epic majesty and evil melodies.

Darkwoods My Betrothed on their new single: “This is one of our favourite songs from the new album. Lyrically, it tells the story of the so-called “Death March of the Carolinians” where 3000 soldiers of the Swedish army froze to death when withdrawing from Norway across the fells in the winter of 1718. We chose to approach this topic from an anthropomorphic perspective: the storyteller is the poisonous icy wind which – in the service of the Angel of Carnage – mercilessly murdered the soldiers in the snowy mountains. The story is accompanied with a black metal anthem that combines brutal blastbeat-driven passages with slower and melodic eerie parts featuring choirs and female vocals. We feel that the song captures the atmosphere of the lyric perfectly.“

Angel Of Carnage Unleashed contains eight songs written by the three musicians who founded the band in 1993: Pasi Kankkunen, Jouni Mikkonen and Teemu Kautonen (with substantial creative inputs from the fourth member Tuomas Holopainen). It sets free a unique blend of brutal, fast-driven black metal and epic anthems, in which eerie screams merge with heroic clean vocals, monumental choirs and majestic keyboards along with gory stories of famine, war, plague and the inescapable brutality of Finland’s nature in the era of the Great Northern War (1700-1721). It explores how Finns experienced the many manifestations of the Angel of Carnage, sent by God to punish them for their sins.

Guitarist Jouni Mikkonen on Tuomas Holopainen now being a full member of the band: “Tuomas was featured as a session keyboardist on all previous albums. This time he was fully on board from the moment we decided to make this album and hence it was natural for him to become a full band member. He also made a substantial contribution to the creative process.”

The album opener “Name the Dead'' sets off with atmospheric organ tunes but leaves no scope for weakness, as only a few seconds later storming drums, aggressive riffs and raging growls set the stage for everything that is about to come: brutal soundscapes spliced with epic accents! The second track, "In Evil, Sickness and in Grief'', pierces through the core with a poisoning vocal attack and contrasting operatic female background layers. “Murktide and Midnight Sun” marks folk and Viking reminiscence with its clean and catchy vocal presentation, grand choirs and mystic atmosphere, followed by the heavily stomping “You Bitter Source of Sorrow” and “Where We Dwell” with its haunting, all-consuming keyboard passages. “In Thrall to Ironskull's Heart” showcases the multifaceted character of Darkwoods My Betrothed with an almost balladic start, which evolves into an uptempo, epic journey into the Battle of Napue (1714). The title of the penultimate track “Massacre” conveys the track’s musical direction with precision: expect in-your-face blastbeats and gory lyrics. The final song “Black Fog and Poison Wind” unleashes a sonic monster once more, combining aggression, haunting soundscapes and evil melodies, before Angel Of Carnage Unleashed ends with the tunes of a soundtrack-like outro.

Bassist Teemu Kautonen on the album: “The lyrics are based on the work of the renowned Finnish historian Teemu Keskisarja. His research inspired us both to carefully embed all lyrics in the appropriate historical context and to bring forth the human dimension by focusing on stories of individual people and how they experienced this perhaps darkest period of Finnish history.”

Vocalist/guitarist Pasi Kankkunen adds: “It was very important for us to have the original line-up on the comeback album. We also agreed right at the beginning of the process to share the songwriting in equal proportions – just as we did on the 1996 classic album, Autumn Roars Thunder.”

Angel Of Carnage Unleashed will be available in the following formats:

- 12P Digipak
- 2LP Gatefold BLACK (Etching Side D)
- 2LP Gatefold Crystal Clear (Etching Side D) - limited to 300 copies worldwide
- Digital Album

Pre-order here.

Angel Of Carnage Unleashed tracklisting:

"Name The Dead"
"In Evil, Sickness And In Grief"
"Murktide And Midnight Sun"
"You Bitter Source Of Sorrow"
"Where We Dwell"
"In Thrall To Ironskull’s Heart"
"Massacre"
"Black Fog And Poison Wind"
"Outro"

"Murktide And Midnight Sun” lyric video:

"In Evil, Sickness And In Grief" lyric video:

Darkwoods My Betrothed are:

Pasi Kankkunen - vocals, guitar
Jouni Mikkonen - guitar
Teemu Kautonen - bass, backing vocals
Tuomas Holopainen - keyboards
Kai Hahto - drums (session)

(Photo - Antti Ilvonen)