Oakenthrone‘s debut black metal album Ad Silvam is due for release on 27th November through Vendetta Records, with ‘Monolith’ out now as a video single.
“‘Monolith’ deals with the magnitude of death, the eternity of the post-mortem abyss, and the terror that it imparts on us,” said the band’s Simon Nagington. “Yet we are forever caught in its magnetic pull, the call to the void. For true immortality lies in the memories of our loved ones, and its gateway is found in an early grave.”
Thematically, the Ad Silvam album explores both the entropy of life and the atrophy of death. The temptations of the immortality that only death can offer, the terror of the concept of eternity, and the divinity of nature; the great equaliser, where men, beasts and gods are all destined to return, as one, to the soil. Musically, each track tells a story. A saga that weaves between moments of unbridled rage, the peaks of epic grandeur and the depths of melancholic introspection. Soaring melodies, monolithic riffs and blistering aggression with moments of brief, quiet reflection.
Written over the span of 12 months by Nagington, then with the aid of the rest of Oakenthrone, Ad Silvam was recorded by the band themselves and mixed and mastered by Sam Turbitt at Ritual Studios in the spring of 2026. The album artwork is an original oil painting created for the album by Simon Chognot.
Formed in 2022 as a solo project, Oakenthrone built early momentum through two sold-out cassette releases, Embers Of Reverie (2024) and Astral Binding & The Oathsworn (2025). They expanded into a full four-piece live unit in 2025 with the addition of Nathan Caven (ex-Sathamel), Andrew Hunt (ex-Pist) and Ant Hurlock (ex-Mairu), and played their debut show at the Call Of The Crow festival. A festival split cassette with Gate Master followed, as did Paths Once Trodden (2024-2025) for Darkwoods Records.
This year Oakenthrone joined Saor on their Amidst The Ruins tour, appeared at Fortress Presents: Tynebound, and will headline across the UK this December.
OAKENTHRONE UK TOUR
10 December: Norwich, Dead Wax
11 December: Liverpool, Outpost
12 December: Newcastle, Zerox
13 December: Leeds, The Lending Room
Read more about Oakenthrone on RAMzine.
