Candlelight Records has announced May 27 as the American release date for angL, the second solo album from former Emperor vocalist/guitarist Ihsahn. The album features nine new songs all written and performed by the highly respected musician. The album features guest performances by drummer Asgeir Mickelson, bassist Lars Koppang Norberg (both of the band Spiral Architect) and Mikael Akerfeldt (Opeth).
Recorded and mixed by Ihsahn at Symphonique Studios in Notodden, Norway (the studio owned by Ihsahn and partner Heidi Tveitan), additional work was completed by Jens Bogren (Opeth, Katatonia, Amon Amarth) at Fascination Street Studios and Borge Finnstad (Mayhem, Borknagar) at Toproom Studios. Commenting about the record’s musical collaborations, “Asgeir (Mickelson) did such a great job on my last album (The Adversary, Candlelight 2006), that while in preproduction for angL I programmed a much more generic drum track to leave more creative license for him. It was on Asgeir’s recommendation that Lars (Koppang Norberg) contribute to the album. They both recorded at Asgeir’s studio (Multimono Studios) and it came together nicely.”
Working with Mikael (Akerfeldt), “Mikael and I go back as friends since the early Nineties. We met up when Emperor headlined Wacken in 2006 and had a great time watching bands together. We talked then about doing something together at some point and in spite of busy schedules on both sides this luckily came to happen. Rough mixes of “Unhealer” with lyrics were sent to Mikael with the idea for both clean and growl vocals. He worked on it during his off-time recording the new Opeth album. I could not be any happier with the results.”
Writing for angL began early in 2007 and picked up momentum after the Emperor U.S. performances early last summer. “I knew to a greater extent where I wanted to go with this album, though I feel all albums are a kind of struggle to overcome. Regardless of how many you make, it never gets any easier.” An aggressive schedule to complete the album, in addition to recording projects for Hardingrock (in which Ihsahn also contributes) and Starofash (released February 26), Ihsahn completed album tracking in early December. With mixing and mastering completed early this year, the musician is already starting promotion with for the album; efforts that will take up much of his time over the coming months leading up to album release.
Track listing for angL (not in running order) is: Alchemist, Elevator, Malediction, Misanthrope, Monolith, Morningstar, Scarab, Threnody and Unhealer.
Spellemann (Norwegian Grammy) Award Nominee Ihsahn (born Vegard Tveitan) began playing music at a very early age. As a teenager, his friendship with Tomas Haugen (a.k.a. Samoth) would trigger the start of his music career—one that to date includes over fifty individual recordings, five high-profile Emperor European tours (the band reaching U.S. shores on only 3 occasions) and the respect of fans and peers worldwide.
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