Metal Injection's Top 25 Records of 2024

Chat Pile’s sludgy mix of nu metal and ’90s underground rock isn’t anything new, but it’s hard to imagine it existing so comfortably at any other time. Part of it’s their willingness to traverse what in another era would’ve been uncrossable cultural lines: Pledging your allegiance to the funny, post-punk surrealism of a band like Pere Ubu (“Camcorder”) at the same time as the single-entendre misery of Korn (“Funny Man”), for example. If metal is, on some level, guitar-country, Chat Pile is firmly set in its rhythm section, which is as rumbling and inescapable as the power lines and strip-mined hills of the Middle America outside their window, leaving the guitars primarily to peel paint. Where guys this misanthropic might’ve been considered social liabilities in their past (or at least dangers to their parents and church youth group), now they sound content to stay in their rooms and pig out on memes about the world they’ve always known was in ruin. “Tape” is the peak here not because it’s the hardest but because it’s the funkiest, whatever funk means to bands like this. Forget alienation—they’re laughing.

For their 14th album, Swedish prog wizards Opeth created a concept record around the reading of a will. Partly inspired by a talk-show segment and partly by the massively popular TV show *Succession*, Opeth guitarist/vocalist Mikael Åkerfeldt decided to write about an inheritance with a twist. “I stumbled upon the idea of putting the whole story as it would’ve been written in a legal document, like a proper old piece of paper with paragraphs like, ‘My daughter will get the country house,’ and things like that,” he tells Apple Music. “But it’s more like a confession of sorts, where the patriarch reveals secrets about himself, his paranoia, and his regrets. And some of these secrets will immediately affect his children in an existential kind of way.” *The Last Will and Testament* also marks Åkerfeldt’s return to the death-metal vocal style of Opeth’s early days. “I wanted to bring back the screaming vocal, but at first, I felt a bit like a fraud because I wasn’t listening to brutal music,” he explains. “I’m listening to Dexter Gordon and David Crosby. But after I finished two songs with that kind of vocal, I thought it was fucking awesome.” Add guest appearances from Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson (on flute and narration) and Europe vocalist Joey Tempest, and you’ve got another fascinating installment in Opeth’s catalog. Below, Åkerfeldt comments on each track. **“§1”** “This was the first song written for the album. It’s when I dipped my toe in the water, so to speak, to see where I was on a musical level. At the time, I didn’t really have the lyrics ready, but I wanted to try out that screaming vocal. So, this song is kind of the guinea pig for that. And usually, when I start writing for a record, I come out all guns blazing. So, it’s kind of heavy, evil, fast, and a bit insane. Lyrically, the kids are being summoned to attend the reading of their late father’s last will and testament. There’s also a couple of solicitors in place. The reading starts, and he’s explaining that there’s going to be prizes. But they might not be what you wanted.” **“§2”** “I can hear that I was quite comfortable with whatever I was doing musically here. And that kind of stands out because it has two guests on there. On ‘Paragraph One’ you have a voice-over thing by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, and he’s heavily featured in ‘Paragraph Two’ as well. And so is Joey Tempest, from Europe. For some reason, he loves Opeth, which is awesome for me because I grew up with Europe. The song itself is pretty adventurous, I think. It’s probably one of the songs that will take a long time to sink in with the listener. There’s also a calm section that I kind of nicked from Paul Simon’s ‘Still Crazy After All These Years.’” **“§3”** “This is more of a classic heavy metal song, I would say. The opening was inspired by a theme you often hear in jazz music, like Django Reinhardt, but also some classical music and fusion-rock bands. And the musical *Chess*, believe it or not, which was written by Benny and Björn from ABBA. From there, it kind of becomes a normal heavy metal song, but with more emotions than your basic Iron Maiden song. I’m not saying Iron Maiden doesn’t have emotions, but this is kind of a sad song—to me at least. Lyrically, there’s some explanation about infidelity that happened and what that led to.” **“§4”** “This is an interesting tune because it’s almost like a couple of different songs in one, which is not so uncommon for Opeth. I started off trying to write something called 12-note music, which is an experimental classical thing where you have 12 notes in an octave, and you can’t play the same note twice—meaning it’s going to be fucked up. So, the beginning of the song is hard to sing along to. It’s a bit Zappa-esque. That leads into kind of a metal-y call-and-response with death metal vocals and clean vocals, and then it stops and goes into a harp section. I actually found the harp player from an article in a Swedish newspaper, which is weird. That leads to the next section, which is Ian Anderson playing the flute. Then it builds into the most vicious, evil-sounding music on the record.” **“§5”** “This is maybe the last song I wrote for the record, or one of the last. You can tell that I’m comfortable in my songwriting here because it’s quite experimental. There’s not a lot of acoustic guitars on this record, but this song is built around an acoustic lick and clean vocals, and all of it gradually becomes heavier. In some parts, maybe the heaviest sections on the record. And really good death-metal vocals on that track, if I do say so myself. There’s also a Middle Eastern-sounding midsection, which I never dared to do before. If you just hear the song once, you probably won’t know what the fuck is happening. You need some time with it.” **“§6”** “During the recording, everybody feared this song because it’s so difficult. It doesn’t sound difficult, but for some reason, it’s really, *really* difficult. I’m not really a good guitar player or a good musician, but for some reason I have a knack for writing really complex music. And this song, it’s almost like it spirals out of control in a way, like you’re losing control of the horse and it just stampedes. I’ve never done cocaine in my life, but it sounds like what I imagine a cocaine rush is. I think that’s got something to do with me not tampering with the tempo of the song, which resulted in us almost not being able to play the fucking thing.” **“§7”** “This always felt like the ending song of a record, even if there’s one after. But it’s still the end of the testament, as it were. It’s more of a groovy song. I don’t really like that word, but sometimes it’s the only word that applies. It’s slower than the other songs, and less crazy. It’s also the first song in our history where every band member sings. There’s a multipart harmony vocal that happens a couple of times, and everyone is on it. I can tell you there were people who had never been in front of a microphone before, which was quite fun.” **“A Story Never Told”** “At this point, the testament is done. But everything that’s been said in the testament doesn’t really apply because here comes the twist to the story. The inheritance has been settled, a few years have passed, and a letter arrives, revealing a secret. The song itself is a ballad, and I’m a sucker for ballads. I wanted to write a beautiful ballad, not just because I love ballads, but because the seven songs prior to ‘A Story Never Told’ are so intense that there’s no room for breath, really. And this song feels like a good ending, with a beautiful Gilmour/Blackmore-esque solo by \[Opeth guitarist\] Fredrik \[Åkesson\] at the finish.”

Nineteen albums into their genre-defining career, heavy metal gods Judas Priest are still on top. *Invincible Shield* continues in the anthemic, fan-friendly tradition of 2018’s *Firepower* with songs inspired by internet-induced rage (“Panic Attack”), political charlatans (“Devil in Disguise”), and the Salem witch trials (“Trial by Fire”), among many other topics. “As the metal messenger of Priest, I\'m always looking for opportunities to touch on subjects and ideas that I haven\'t done before,” vocalist Rob Halford tells Apple Music. “You’re searching for something fresh, something new. It’s the same with all of us in Priest. I think this is so important in music—to be interesting, engaging, and entertaining. I think Priest have been doing that for 50 years. Otherwise, we\'d have been dissipated many decades ago.” Below, he comments on each song on *Invincible Shield*, plus the three bonus tracks included in the deluxe edition. **“Panic Attack”** “When you talk about topics and subjects and ideas and so forth, it\'s all been done. Let\'s face it. Whenever I do a title for a song, I search it, because I hate doing things that have been done before. But ‘Panic Attack,’ I just love that phrase. I used to have panic attacks before I got sober, and they’re very debilitating. In this case, it’s someone reacting to something they’ve seen on the internet.” **“The Serpent and the King”** “The devil is the serpent, and the king is God. Is the devil a deity? I don’t know. But I think the serpent came to me first, and then naturally my mind went to the king. And then I always try to use at least one word in a Priest album that I\'ve never used before, like ‘sulfur.’ We know what sulfur is, we know what it smells like. So, we’ve got the devil and God in conflict. Good and evil, positive and negative, black and white. It’s a constant battle.” **“Invincible Shield”** “This is resilience, determination, protection. As I was sitting there with a blank piece of paper and pencil, what came into my head was the invincibility of who we are as people in all aspects of life and living, and the shield that we defend ourselves with. It’s about standing up for yourself within our world of heavy metal.” **“Devil in Disguise”** “I\'m a news hound. Like most old people, you start to engage in politics more as you age. When you\'re a younger person, for the most part, you don\'t give a fuck about politics. But as you get older, you start thinking, \'Why do I want to do an Elvis—pull out my gun and shoot the TV?\' So, this song came from just thinking about the political spectrum, but also thinking about the snake oil salesmen of this world. In the old westerns, the snake oil guy would come into town saying, ‘This potion will cure baldness. This one will make the horse eat.’ We’re not far removed from that, are we?” **“Gates of Hell”** “There are some deep, dark moments on this record, and this one goes to purgatory. You get there if you ride with me. It\'s that unity aspect of this beautiful metal community that we\'ve got. Sign on the line, let the Priest sell your soul. I was thinking of the PMRC, and I was thinking about devil music, and the people that used to come and stand outside the venues with placards: \'Judas Priest is the devil,\' and all that fun stuff. This is kind of throwing it back in their faces.” **“Crown of Horns”** “It\'s about finding love. I think if you can find love, it makes you complete. And it\'s a very deep song for me, spiritually. It\'s about finding Christ, really, but I wrap it up in that beautiful sphere of love. Love is all that matters. Love beats hate worldwide no matter where you\'re from. It\'s what keeps us all together.” **“As God Is My Witness”** “I think what\'s happening with me here is there\'s a lot of mortality going in my mind. Life can be a battle. I mean, it can be a battle trying to get the particular brand of bread that you want—‘they’re out of the bread!’ Originally, we were going to call this song ‘Hell to Pay,’ but ‘As God Is My Witness’ felt better. It’s something people actually say, like, ‘You’ve got another thing coming,’ or ‘Breaking the law.’ These phrases are out in the world, and they’re fun to utilize.” **“Trial by Fire”** “I saw something on Netflix about the Salem witch trials. The horrific way all those women were treated was out of pure superstition. The power of religion is profound in the way it affects humanity, and some of that is trauma. That was kind of the spark for this, but it’s also a bit of a reference to the way the public, when they get a story or an incident—and this is human nature—become the judge, the jury, and the executioner. We are so fast to create our opinions.” **“Escape From Reality”** “The bulk of that song comes from \[guitarist\] Glenn \[Tipton\]. He has these riff vaults. The thing about a riff is that it doesn’t matter if he wrote it in 1970 or 2023. Within *Invincible Shield*, it’s an affirmation of the heaviness of Judas Priest in this slow-tempo context. I think it’s the only one on the album with that kind of groove. Some of the messages on this album are quite personal, and ‘Escape From Reality’ is one of those. It’s about wishing you could go back in time to fix certain things, whatever they might be. It could be as simple as an argument in a relationship, or something big and traumatic.” **“Sons of Thunder”** “When you sit astride a Harley or whatever it is, it epitomizes freedom. The bike represents so many things with Judas Priest, and we\'re the only heavy metal band that\'s utilized the bike consistently. Those things that are attached to the bike—it\'s loud, it smells, it pisses people off—that\'s metal. I just wanted to have a bit of fun with that. And it\'s a little bit of a nod to *Sons of Anarchy*, because that free spirit, that part of Americana, is with us.” **“Giants in the Sky”** “The touchstones for this were Ronnie \[James Dio\] and Lemmy, two of my dear friends. Originally it was going to be called ‘The Mighty Have Fallen,’ but I thought that just sounds too bleak. Let\'s give it some lift. Let\'s give it some transcendence. I was also thinking about rock ’n’ roll radio. When I was growing up in England, we had one station. The first time I came to America, I couldn’t believe how many stations there were. And right now, as you and I are speaking, somebody in the world is playing Ronnie or Lemmy over the radio. They’re the giants in the sky.” **“Fight of Your Life”** “This is a bonus track. I really wanted it in the main track listing, but I didn’t get my way. I’m not a fan of brutal sports, but I do understand the athleticism and the skill of MMA and boxing, and even the fun stuff like wrestling. And you are fighting for your life. It’s a struggle and you’re pushing through. But I love this song. To me, it’s like, ‘Can we please put this song up for the NFL or NBA?’” **“Vicious Circle”** “Sometimes relationships can be in a vicious circle. ‘With the wicked schemes, cut deep the way that you can try/It makes me wonder how you sleep.’ So, again, we\'re in the political arena, aren\'t we? ‘I stand against you as you rage. My fate has struck your gilded cage.’ It\'s about the way personal relationships can sometimes get into a vicious circle, but it\'s also addressing the political spectrum.” **“The Lodger”** “Bob Halligan Jr. wrote this. He wrote ‘Some Heads Are Gonna Roll’ and ‘(Take These) Chains.’ He came to a show a few years ago, just to see the band. It was so great to see him, and I love what he’d done with those two tracks, so I said, ‘If you’ve got anything, send it to me.’ Maybe a month later, he sends me this. It’s about a guy who kills his wife and then his sister. It’s like a mini-movie about revenge and justice. Bob has a great talent for words and imagery, and I really love the dark and mysterious atmosphere of this song.”

For their third album, Kentucky hardcore troupe Knocked Loose chose a title that resonated deeply with vocalist Bryan Garris. During an airplane takeoff that triggered Garris’ fear of flying, the woman seated next to him offered the comforting words, “You won’t go before you’re supposed to.” “The line struck him so strongly that it immediately occurred to him that it should be the title,” Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale tells Apple Music. “It also became a lyric in the last song, ‘Sit & Mourn.’ Like the rest of our records, this is a collection of stuff from Bryan’s personal struggles dealing with anger and loss and depression and sadness. It’s a reminder to him—and all of us—that we’re still here. We made it through all the hardships that came with the past four years of writing this.” Musically speaking, Knocked Loose entered the writing sessions for *You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To* with a very different mindset than the one that drove their 2019 breakthrough *A Different Shade of Blue* and revered 2021 concept EP *A Tear in the Fabric of Life*. “There was just way more pressure, and we had way more experience,” Hale says. “Some people view the third album as a make-or-break record. We had pressure from the fans and the outside world, but more so pressure from ourselves. We thought, ‘How can we possibly outdo what we’ve done before?’ It was tough, but I think we were able to come up with a record where every song accomplishes something unique.” Below, he discusses each track. **“Thirst”** “This was written in the first session that we ever had for this record. It was written before *A Tear in the Fabric of Life* even came out. It came from a jam session we were having where we wanted to create a really difficult song on drums to challenge our drummer Pacsun. We wanted something super short, super intense, and we just made it as complex as we could. And to start the record, it’s something we’ve never done before—a super in-your-face jump scare.” **“Piece by Piece”** “This was our attempt at doing kind of a Hatebreed-esque banger. It has a hook to it, but the hook is one of the mosh parts in the song, akin to \[Hatebreed’s\] ‘Perseverance.’ One of the things we wanted to accomplish on this record was to create stuff that was hooky and catchy, but at the same time crazy heavy. In many ways, I think that it’s the most hardcore song on the record, and that’s what we love about it. It’s our version of a catchy hardcore track that can really connect with people.” **“Suffocate” (feat. Poppy)** “We wrote this song after we thought we had a finished record. Before we went to record, Poppy slid into Bryan’s DMs asking if we would be interested in collaborating on some music. Me and Bryan are huge Poppy fans, so of course we said yes automatically. That same day, Bryan called me like, ‘Hey, man—I’m coming over. We need to write another song.’ We wrote the track the next day, and it was one of the smoothest writing experiences on the record because we wrote it knowing Poppy was going to be a part of it. And because of that, we were able to do some sassy parts that maybe we wouldn’t put on a normal Knocked Loose song but that really work with her voice. I think it’s one of the most special songs we’ve ever written.” **“Don’t Reach for Me”** “This was our attempt at writing a song with a more rock- or pop-oriented structure. It’s different from stuff that we\'ve done before because it has a slightly melodic chorus with a hook. It has a soft bridge with a jam part and some cleaner guitar. And a lot of it is midtempo, besides the very beginning. It only gets fast very briefly. That’s very new for us. There’s like seven mosh parts, so we needed to balance those. It took a long time to figure out, but I think the final product really succeeds in that juxtaposition.” **“Moss Covers All”** “This was written in the second writing session that we did for this record, up in Michigan. We woke up one morning, started jamming, and we were just not coming up with a lot of stuff we liked. We were pretty much just throwing paint at the wall and getting aggravated. When we took a break, I had an idea and basically wrote this entire song in my head in about a minute. I voice memo’d it briefly on my phone and then immediately started putting it down without telling the guys. When they came back, I played it for them—and what I played is pretty much exactly what’s on the record. It’s short, sweet, and super heavy, with a breakdown and a spooky lead that goes directly into the next song.” **“Take Me Home”** “‘Moss Covers All’ and ‘Take Me Home’ are very much connected songs. ‘Moss Covers All’ was written first, but then we really felt the need to have a song on here that’s meant to scare you. We didn’t worry about a mosh part or any sort of heaviness. We just wanted a scary track that’s uncomfortable and throws the listener off guard. When we were thinking about what shape that could take, I immediately thought of that spooky lead from ‘Moss Covers All,’ which we ended up looping as the blueprint for this track.” **“Slaughterhouse 2” (feat. Chris Motionless)** “This song started as an inside joke because Motionless in White was kind enough to reach out to Bryan and have him collaborate on one of their songs, ’Slaughterhouse,’ a very heavy, politically charged track. We’re all huge Motionless in White fans, so of course he accepted. And then we were able to tour with them. As soon as Bryan did that track, we were joking that we should do a song called ‘Slaughterhouse 2.’ We were just kind of laughing about it for a while, but then we thought we were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot if we didn’t do it. Chris was down from the beginning, and his voice is amazing on this. It was a challenge to match the theme and vibe of the original song, but I think we were able to create something that’s not just a great sequel, but that really stands on its own as a highlight of the record.” **“The Calm That Keeps You Awake”** “The funny thing about this one is that the song totally revolves around the huge breakdown at the end. That part was written first, as part of another thing that was written before *A Tear in the Fabric* had even come out. So, like four years ago, we needed to write new parts because the rest of the song we’d written wasn’t up to par, but that breakdown was super necessary. In doing so, we created this really cool, Meshuggah-esque, kind of Sepultura-auxiliary-percussion vibe that’s one of the most unique parts of the record.” **“Blinding Faith”** “We definitely have some jabs at religious hypocrisy throughout the Knocked Loose discography, and this is just kind of an update on that situation. We hadn\'t done one in a while, and it was something that was feeling close to home for Bryan at the time. To me, this sounds like a mix of some of our greatest riffs that we’d written over the course of a year—it’s kind of a riff-salad song. In some ways, it’s one of the heaviest and scariest songs on the record, so we put it out as a single to say, ‘If you thought we were going to get any softer, absolutely not. And here’s proof.’” **“Sit & Mourn”** “This one revolves around the melodic lead and the kind of ambient post-rock breakdown at the end. We wrote that in the first writing session in Joshua Tree, and it took us a while to come up with more parts that we felt were that good. But the song is very, very anthemic. It sounds very dark and melancholic, but at the same time, the lyrics are positive in a way. Thematically, it’s kind of a title track in the way that the lyrics relate to the name of the record. I know it was a very cathartic song for Bryan. In many ways, it’s the saddest song on the record, but in other ways it’s the most positive. And it’s mentally exhausting from start to finish. It ends with a sound clip that I won’t disclose, but it’ll take you by surprise.”

With their fourth album, masked black-metal squad Gaerea have created their most personal and intimate album yet. On *Coma*, the Portuguese musicians—who prefer anonymity, even though their identities are widely known—have crafted a concept album about a mysterious aspect of the subconscious. “All of these tracks could be memories, thoughts, or even ramblings that go on inside the mind of someone who is trapped in the state of coma,” Gaerea’s vocalist and lyricist tells Apple Music. “Everything is happening in the mind of someone who is not exactly alive or dead.” Stylistically, the band takes several leaps outside of the established black-metal realm with clean vocals and more emotive lyrics. “I don’t think this is a black-metal album at all,” he says. “We wanted to explore new ground, other song structures, other ways of singing, other ways of playing drums. We don’t want to stagnate. We’re trying to evolve into something else. But we also don’t feel like we belong to the genre we’ve always fit into. Or at least not completely anymore.” It’s not just the music that’s different. For a band that’s always dug deep, lyrically speaking, *Coma* goes even further beneath the surface. “I won’t say it’s a more mature album, like all the bands ramble about,” he says. “We just wanted to show a bit more of ourselves as human beings. I think it’s a way more emotional record in that sense.” Below, he comments on each track. **“The Poet’s Ballet”** “With \[Gaerea’s 2022 album\] *Mirage*, I was always talking about how selfish the creation process is, so I decided to write a song exclusively about that. ‘The Poet’s Ballet’ is that song. The creation process is beautiful, unique, cathartic, and dramatic for me personally, but also selfish because you can never reproduce the same thing ever again. It’s also selfish because when people hear your song, hopefully they will relate to it. But how they do that is always based on their own feelings and experiences. And then it’s not yours anymore—it’s theirs. In terms of the musical approach, it’s the moment when people hear clean vocals in our record for the very first time.” **“Hope Shatters”** “I’m not going to say we knew a lot of people would like this song, but yeah, we kind of did. It kind of resembles ‘Salve,’ which is probably one of our biggest songs. It’s aggressive, it’s melodic, but it’s very pounding and groovy and explodes in the end. Lyrically, it’s as if this person who is in a coma is flying through the big city and watching all the neon, kind of like a *Blade Runner* scenario where we created all this technology to serve us, but I think most of the time we are the ones serving technology and always cutting short on some of the aspects of our lives.” **“Suspended”** “This is a retake of a song we did before, which was ‘To Ain’ from the *Limbo* album. It’s a song about the falling man from 9/11 and those beautiful photos—if we can call them that—of the people falling or letting themselves go in that moment. I wanted to revisit that, because it’s the most striking thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Of course, we can’t ever know how those people felt—or how their relatives felt—at that moment when they just jumped. But this is a song imagining what those last moments were.” **“World Ablaze”** “This was the last track we wrote for the album. As we were recording it, we felt we should either go full nuts with the song and make it the first single with the best video we can produce—or take it off the record completely. Because it doesn’t really fit the album, if you listen closely. I think it’s a very bold track for a black-metal band to release, and we saw a lot of people getting frustrated about it. Which is great, because it’s exactly what we wanted in a sense. We wanted something people were not expecting at all.” **“Coma”** “This is the song that explains the whole record, basically. I was thinking about how to write a song about someone in a coma, but they’re still conscious of it. Because if there’s no consciousness, there won’t be a song. So, this is a bit like waking up in a dark room and seeing the whole world around you, but you can’t really figure out if it’s reality, if it’s memories, if it’s your imagination, or just your lost dreams in life. It deals with that anxiety of trying to figure out if you’re really here or not, or if this is the afterlife—and whatever the afterlife might look like.” **“Wilted Flower”** “This song has a bit of the not-belonging-anywhere kind of situation. That\'s why it has this title. It\'s a beautiful flower, but it’s starting to rot. It still has its beauty, but there’s some sort of mold or cancer in it. It still has its smell and its soft touch, but it just doesn\'t belong there, or there’s something eerie about it. Sometimes that’s how I feel as a human being or as a creator. There’re all these beautiful moments in life, but sometimes I just feel that imposter syndrome, like maybe this is not what I was supposed to do with my life. I think it’s very normal with creators to feel like that—at least, I know a lot of them that do.” **“Reborn”** “It has to do with the fact that we were a very different band on *Mirage*. We had some changes inside the band, as a lot of people know, but we don’t reveal it because of the band we are. But I think it’s important to open yourself to these emotions. If you’re feeling frail, I think it’s important to explore it and not try to hide it. With *Coma*, it’s important for us to reveal what’s happened, and ‘Reborn’ is how we feel with this record. We lost people and some things that were very important to us, and everything could’ve fallen apart at some point. We even thought maybe we should start over and do something else. But we pushed through and made ourselves stronger.” **“Shapeshifter”** “I think ‘Shapeshifter’ deals a bit with the same emotions of ‘Wilted Flower.’ It\'s the same thing for ‘Unknown,’ too. It deals with the personae and the social masks that sometimes we frame ourselves with in some situations, when we want to please others or belong to a certain group or just in dealing with society. Besides in our own bedrooms, I think we always tend to not be truly ourselves in those moments. This is something we explored a lot back in the *Unsettling Whispers* era, about how fake I feel about myself and others as I put these masks on to deal with other people.” **“Unknown”** “In my teenage years, I lost someone very dear to me. And most of the things that I have in life are things that I didn’t dream about having. I didn’t even know they could be done. But this person that I lost, it was his dream to be an artist and perform to thousands of people and play festivals and record all these songs and albums. So, ‘Unknown’ is about discovering this façade of mine, the feeling that I’m living a life that wasn’t meant to be mine—or living a life that was meant to be lived by someone else. Maybe I’m living someone else’s dream, even though I feel like I was born to do this. But maybe I’m doing this because someone else is not able to, because they were lost in time.” **“Kingdom of Thorns”** “This is a song about sacrifice. We all shaped our lives for everything we do inside the band. Being Portuguese, we only have a couple of bands that everybody knows from my country. It’s not because there’s not a lot of quality—it’s just because there’s a lack of commitment. Sometimes we get a lot of hate when I say these things, but it’s true. All of this to say that for us to make our first tours and buy our first van and do all these things, we had to sacrifice so much in our early twenties. I sacrificed friendships. I sacrificed a past relationship. I sacrificed moments with family. And I think all these things carved a lot of who I am. It makes us who we are as artists.”

Black metal trailblazer Ihsahn likes his self-titled solo album so much that he recorded it twice. *Ihsahn* is available in both metal and orchestral versions, two styles that the Norwegian composer and multi-instrumentalist has been combining since the early ’90s with black metal pioneers Emperor. “To me, black metal is an abstract feeling, an atmosphere,” he tells Apple Music. “It doesn’t rely on any specific sound. Jerry Goldsmith’s score for *The Omen* can sound as black metal as Bathory.” The metal and orchestral versions of *Ihsahn*, his eighth solo outing, operate as two parts of a concept album with overlapping storylines. “I wrote them side by side as one piece,” he explains. “The orchestral version is really just a condensed instrumental version of the metal album. To put it bluntly, I tried to write a simulated soundtrack within the context of the full metal arrangement. So, to me, the orchestral version is just a different version of the same music, but it follows a slightly different story with a similar story arc. It’s all very interconnected.” As for the storylines themselves? They’re based on the classic hero’s journey found in traditional mythology, but beyond that, Ihsahn would rather not say. “I\'m always trying to not give away my story, because it\'s not that interesting for people to have me superimpose my thoughts on them,” he explains. “People can read the lyrics and kind of piece it together for themselves. I think that is a better value for everybody.” Below, he discusses each track. **“Cervus Venator”** “This is a purely orchestral piece, like an introduction, and the title roughly translates to ‘Deer Hunter.’ And, of course, you see the antlers in the artwork and the videos, so this is kind of a hint to the secondary story that follows the narrative of the orchestral album. In that respect it\'s the real beginning of our protagonist\'s trajectory, a dreamlike state before the first track kicks in.” **“The Promethean Spark”** “We are at the start of the story, and the Promethean thing of course hints to Greek mythology. There’s a lot of Greek references with Dionysus and Apollo throughout the album. The story of Prometheus is something akin to the story of Lucifer or the outsider element that gives you a new perspective. It opens your eyes to something more. This is the starting point for the protagonist of this story.” **“Pilgrimage to Oblivion”** “I\'d say this is the most intense and hard song on the album. It’s full of hubris and determination. As the title implies, this is where our protagonist is very decisively starting his journey. It’s a very conscious decision to get out there and challenge yourself, so we’ve got a kind of a violent, challenging approach to this song.” **“Twice Born”** “Musically, ‘Twice Born’ is also on the harder side. With all the runs and everything, it’s kind of a revolt. There’s a sense of chaos involved in the lyrics. There’s a hint in the title again, this idea of being born again in the sense of discovering yourself anew when exposed to more things in your perceived existence. Like all traditional stories, there’s the potential reward of the journey, but also the danger and pitfalls of such a journey.” **“A Taste of the Ambrosia”** “This is the first reflective piece, and for the most part a much slower approach given the perspective. As the title implies, this is when you’ve had a taste of something more. It’s the realization that you can’t go back to where you started. It’s a loss of innocence, in a way, but also an experience of value. It’s like with nice cognac or wine, or coffee, for that matter—it’s hard to go back when one has had the good stuff.” **“Anima Extraneae”** “This is an interlude that also hints at the secondary story. It bleeds in with the orchestral side of things. As you see, the intro and outro and this interlude are all Latin titles, hence separating them from the main storyline. But, of course, the two stories bleed into each other. ‘Anima Extraneae’ translates to something like ‘a strange soul.’ The interlude follows the reflection of the last song. You’ve walked away from something and become estranged from what you were and the life you had prior to this. Musically, there’s a romantic sense of peace about it.” **“Blood Trails to Love”** “Again, there\'s a small hint in the title. You are exposed to danger; you\'re exposed to the unpredictable, and suddenly along the way in a typical story like this—and hopefully in our separate lives in general—we experience love. For someone in our protagonist’s position, are they capable of being loved? Have they come too far? Are they too estranged to be loved or even to be connected? There are some dilemmas there.” **“Hubris and Blue Devils”** “This song is of a more rebellious nature. ‘Blue Devils’ is referenced almost like a hangover, with all the hints of Dionysus and intoxication. There’s this feeling of hubris, like, ‘Fuck it. I’ll go all in, whatever the stakes.’ It reflects also to ‘Twice Born’ in the lyrics, so it’s something like giving up or giving in. There’s this sense of reigniting the same kind of willpower and determination as in ‘Pilgrimage to Oblivion’ in terms of accepting that this is the journey and the path you took.” **“The Distance Between Us”** “We’re getting into more of a reflective perspective again here. It\'s like the entire album, both in musical form and the lyrics, has this duality between balance and chaos; the safe, conformed, predictable existence versus the less predictable and more adventurous. ‘The Distance Between Us’ is the more reflective part of creating that distance in this kind of journey. Of course, this is not necessarily a physical journey. You are perhaps distancing yourself from things and people that you would not like to distance yourself from. Every journey has reward and sacrifice.” **“At the Heart of All Things Broken”** “This is the end of the journey. In my head, this is looking back on having returned and reflecting on the rewards and sacrifices made along the way. The lyrics are in present tense, in contrast to the rest of the record. I am very pleased with the title because it also has this kind of ambiguity to it. There’s ambition and tragedy and hope and loss and love in all of our lives. In the end, you will have to reflect on if you find your existence meaningful. None of us are spared tragedy, I think, but there are really no steps you could have skipped on your journey.” **“Sonata Profana”** “The title is a direct hint to the actual story that goes into the orchestral piece. Musically, it doesn’t imply a specifically happy ending.”