Norwegian black metallers GRAVDAL announced today that they are parting company with guitarist Specter. The parting is completely amicable, with Specter deciding that he needs to commit more time to other projects, something that Gravdal both supports and understands. Commenting on the split, guitarist Phobos said: “It was a big decision to have to take since Specter has been with us for seven years, and he has been instrumental in shaping Gravdal’s music into what it is today. But the music business has always been very fluid, and although we will miss him both as a musician and as a person, we fully support his decision and would like to thank him for his massive contribution to Gravdal, as well as for all the good times, and we wish him well for the future.”

Things on the Gravdal front have been somewhat quiet since the release of the band’s sophomore full-length album Torturmantra in 2010, due in part to Phobos’ recording commitments with AETERNUS, for whom he is found in his more usual role behind the drumkit, as well as with GALAR. But the band have now started working on the follow up to Torturmantra, which featured a show-stopping guest performance by SHINING’s Niklas Kvarforth on the track 'Mishandlet'. According to Phobos, “We are ready to reveal that the album will be called Kadaverin but more than that we can’t say at the moment. With our second album we took a huge step forward, expanding the range of the band considerably so rest assured that with Kadaverin we will be taking things even further.”

More information about Gravdal can be found on the band’s Facebook page.

Six tracks from Gravdal can be heard on the band’s SoundCloud page at http://soundcloud.com/Gravdal/sets or embedded using the following code:

Gravdal PLAYER by Gravdal

Footage of Gravdal performing the track 'Selvmord' from the album Sadist can be seen below: