In the eighth of nine installments, bassist/vocalist Grutle Kjellson and rhythm guitarist/songwriter Ivar Bjørnson of the progressive/psychedelic Norwegian black metal band ENSLAVED offer commentary on the songs that will appear on the band’s new album Axioma Ethica Odini, which is scheduled for release in Europe on September 27th and in North America on September 28th.

Grutle on 'Nightsight': “Another one of the songs that kicked in right away! As far as I remember, this was the 2nd or the 3rd sketch Ivar sent me. He did the pre-production sketch for this at his holiday cottage in Sweden last summer. The recorded version however, differs a lot from that early version. Actually, this is probably the song that changed the most. On this one, we even changed into a different drum kit for the intro. We set up a an old kit from the ‘70s, quite minimalistic, to get that extra jazzrock feeling… heh, heh. It actually turned out to be a very wise move, and it resulted in a very dynamic and great song. Perhaps our most retro song ever, but it’s nicely balanced with some rather harsh extreme metal parts.”

Ivar on 'Nightsight': “This was the one song that kept us in the rehearsal room for long hard nights last fall. Finding the opening’s right level and balance between the parts was one of the bigger challenges we’ve ever encountered as musicians. You know, if the first ‘feely’-part was to turn out too powerful, the whole point of building into a crescendo and then full-blast double-bass drums would be lost. If the same part became too soft and tender, there would be nowhere to build from... and so on and so forth. Finally, we worked it out and I was quite nervous about whether we were able to transfer our solutions onto tape in the studio. I would dare say we so, and more. This time the drums were co-produced by Trinacria-drummer Iver Sandøy, and if there’s someone who knows drum dynamics, this is he. We ended up using multiple drum kits for this song, and I am really proud of the result. The song deals with what the title so blatantly implies: A journey into the dark. Not necessarily in the literal sense, though.”

Read the commentaries on 'Ethica Odini', 'Raidho', 'Waruun', 'The Beacon', 'Axioma', 'Giants' and 'Singular' at this location.

Axioma Ethica Odini will feature the following tracklisting:

'Ethica Odini'

'Raidho'

'Waruun'

'The Beacon'

'Axioma'

'Giants'

'Singular'

'Night Sight'

'Lightening'

Audio samples of all tracks from Axioma Ethica Odini are available online at Amazon.co.uk.

Enslaved recently launched a 'Ethica Odini' Fan Video Contest. More information on the flyer below. Further details at this location.

Enslaved will embark on a seven-show Circling Above And Within Tour of Europe beginning October 15th and will return to North America in November as the direct support act for DIMMU BORGIR. All upcoming tour dates are available here.