Season Of Mist has announced the signing of The Abbey, the emerging progressive doom metal band featuring Natalie Koskinen (Shape Of Despair), Jesse Heikkinen (Henget, Iterum Nata), Vesa Ranta (Sentenced, The Man-Eating Tree), and Janne Markus (The Man-Eating Tree).

In conjunction with the announcement, the band is now revealing their bewitching first single, "A Thousand Dead Witches", along with a chilling music video that will certainly get you in the spirit of Samhain! The age-restricted clip, which was directed by Ranta, can be seen upon logging into YouTube.

The Abbey comments on the signing, "We feel honored and privileged to get to write a new chapter in the history of Season Of Mist - a distinguished label that has the courage and vision to do something extraordinary. We do believe that the collaboration between Season Of Mist and The Abbey is going to lead us to great things."

Regarding the single, the band adds, "Our first single has all the basic The Abbey elements: big vocals, dissonant harmonies, hauntingly beautiful melodies and tempo changes. This is The Abbey’s ode against oppression and tyranny."

"A Thousand Dead Witches" is taken from The Abbey's upcoming debut album, Word Of Sin, which will be released on February 17, 2023 via Season Of Mist. The cover artwork, created by Alexander Reisfar, can be found below, while the tracklisting and additional info will be revealed at a later date. 

In the meantime, pre-save the album across all streaming services here.

Word Of Sin was recorded between April and November 2021 in several locations across Finland. Drums, bass and Markus’ guitars were tracked at Kratio Studio in Oulu by Kyösti Rautio. Rautio also served as co-producer and mixed the album, becoming the unofficial sixth member of The Abbey. Heikkinen, who recorded most of his vocals and guitars in his stepdaughter’s room, surrounded by My Little Ponies, Disney figurines and a pile of esoteric literature, is careful to point out that The Abbey fails to drop into any neat, little subgenre. 

“The album was made purely for self-expressive reasons,” he says. “My music is the channel where I can be as true and authentic as possible. It is also a somewhat safe way to explore and express the dark side of myself and the collective consciousness. Word of Sin may seem like a tremendously dark piece as a rock album, but it’s pretty lightweight for a doom metal album! The material proved so strong that it was obvious that it wasn’t going to be another side project. I think using the means of improvisation made the music sound more like its creator instead of it being forced to be this or that — and that seemed to work really well for us!” 

For further details, visit The Abbey on Facebook.