Elvenking return with a brand-new single and in ‘Bride Of Night’ from the album Reader Of The Runes – Rapture due out on AFM Records on 28th April.
The song features former Draconian vocalist Heike Langhans, and the band: “We are proud to present our new song and video ‘Bride of Night’. It surely represents the more melodic side of our sound, yet dark and melancholic. We know that a lot of our fans love this side of Elvenking, so this is also a gift to you.
“Reader Of The Runes – Rapture will collect all of the shades of our sound from the more aggressive ever, to songs like ‘Bride of Night’ so, by listening to the entire album you will travel through a multitude of nuances and atmospheres – we cannot wait for you to hear it in all its epicness!
“Heike Langhans offered her beautiful voice in the chorus backing Damna vocals. The amazing video is once again directed by Matteo Ermeti who did with us ‘Silverseal’ and he couldn’t better envision the story – a glimpse of painful romance that captures one of the chapters of the story.”
Previously they released ‘The Hanging Tree‘ as a single with lyric video, and they noted:
“‘The Hanging Tree’ is a song that sets a violent darker tone as we dive deep into the core of the story narrated in the second part of the Reader Of The Runes trilogy, ” said the band of the new single that follows December’s ‘Rapture’ single, adding: “If ‘Rapture’ was more epic, slow paced and filled with many different shades and textures, ‘The Hanging Tree’ is a merciless fast cavalcade that goes straight to the point with a heavy fast riffing, melodic yet aggressive vocals, big choirs in the chorus, two insane guitar solos and a folk break in the middle that our dear EK fans will definitely love. It will surely be a highlight in our forthcoming live shows.” That single is available here and you can check out the video here at RAMzine.
“After three years of absence, we decided to give our fans a taste of the album that could be as plenty as possible,” guitarist Aydan and vocalist Damna commented. “’Rapture’ is one of the longest tracks of the lot and we feel it has all the epic-ness, the tragic nature and most of the nuances that the album incorporates in its entire length, so this is what we wanted to offer to our listeners as a first glimpse of Reader Of The Runes – Rapture. Also, lyrically it is the perfect link between the previous chapter and this one, as it is the Introduction. The story opens on the Reader of the Runes himself and we read about his mindset and plans before the climax that will be described in the rest of the songs.”
Since 1997, the band has unleashed the shackles of musical genres step by step before they truly broke out with their 2014 album The Pagan Manifesto, evoking the essence of heavy metal, pagan metal, folk and melodic death metal. For four albums now, Elvenking have been defying genres, feeling quite at home in their very own enchanted realm.
With Rapture, the Italian collective delivers part two of their monumental Reader Of The Runes trilogy, and an epic metal quest of woe and despair, wrought with mysterious figures, dark magic and an altogether mesmerising autumnal flair reminiscent of a forest glade during Indian Summer. It’s more than just a metal album. It’s a moving story set to fabulous songs, bridging the gap between fantasy and reality.
Reader Of The Runes – Rapture was written between 2020 and 2022, and was recorded between May and October 2022 by the band and renowned producer Scott Atkins (Cradle Of Filth, Behemoth) who also took over mixing and mastering duties.
“How would we have approached musically the second chapter of the Reader Of The Runes trilogy? That’s a question we asked ourselves many times before finalising the songwriting process,“ Damna and Aydan explained. “Working both on ROTR Part 2 and Part 3 at the same time, really helped us spread the songs, the lyrics and the atmospheres on the whole remaining part of the story as the development of the events needed a strong backing from the music.
“So, Part 2 is indeed darker, it needed to be tragic and violent and this gave us the chance to fully breathe the soundscape we already had in mind as we started to write songs in early 2020. We feel that with this album we have cast a milestone and set a further limit in what we can do by mixing wisely what we deeply love in metal. We are very satisfied with all the shades that compose these eleven songs; altogether they make a canvas we are very proud of. Part 3 instead will explore the disclosure of all the mysteries narrated in the first two chapters and for this very reason you’ll have to expect even further different musical nuances in the future of this trilogy.”
Tracks featured on the album are: ‘Rapture’, ‘The Hanging Tree’, ‘Bride of Night’, ‘Herdchant’, ‘The Cursed Cavalier’, ‘To the North’, ‘Covennant’, ‘Red Mist’, ‘Incantations’, ‘An Autumn Reverie’, and ‘The Repentant’.
Reader Of The Runes – Rapture can be pre-ordered here, the previous ‘Rapture’ single is also available on all digital platforms here, and you can check out the video here at RAMzine.
