Icelandic black metal quintet Nexion will release their new studio record, Sundrung, in September, once again via Avantgarde Music. Five years after their acclaimed debut album Seven Oracles, Nexion is back to deliver their new opus, enriched by an illustration by Jose Gabriel Sabogal.
Music journalist Jonathan Selzer, who listened to the whole record in advance, introduces the record as follows.
“Sundrung, the second, firmament-storming album from Icelandic black metallers Nexion, begins with a curse – a prophetic vision found on ancient rune stones against those who defile sacred spaces. Chanted during the surging, acrid tides and wildly scything riffs of the opening song, Uþarpaspa, it’s both an incantation and a judgement passed for a world that’s gone beyond a point of no return, where mass extinction events, voracious consumption, ideological extremism and the dehumanising march of technology are ripping apart the social and cosmic fabric on which we depend. If existence is at the brink, the only way forward is to push it to the other side.
The title, Sundrung is an Old Icelandic for “discord, disharmony and the sundering of the social and cosmic fabric”. The album is an act of rebirth through the cycle of destruction. It’s vastly more dynamic and far-reaching than its predecessor. Monumental in its sheer presence and scope, expanding its blast radius into new sonic realms, Sundrung is riven with an apocalyptic fervour that’s ramped up to the most galvanising, consciousness-searing of degrees as it becomes an incendiary act of deliverance.
As well as charting humankind’s journey into perdition, Sundrung is an extension of personal paths. Unlike with Seven Oracles, vocalist Jósúa has turned to his own life, grounded in the perspectives of animism, indigenous thinking and Norse cosmology, and branching out into clean vocals for the first time. His approach is to ask, what are our responsibilities to a world that is greater than us but which we can harm, how do we relate to one another and the world around us holistically, and if we have already failed, what empowerment do we find on a fixed path toward ruin. Calling upon scenes of cosmic violence and performing ancient chants of ritual magic to summon death goddesses who weave human destiny with bloody entrails, Sundrung’s implacable, lay-waste momentum is infused with an imperious grandeur, as though Behemoth and Anaal Nathrakh were waging war in the Heavens.”
Nexion‘s Sundrung will be available on CD, LP and through all digital platforms in September, and is anticipated by the first single and videoclip “Gandr”.
The album’s first single Gandr is also a curse. It ritually breaks an ancient runic ward against destroyer spirits by inverting it to call them forth against mankind’s perpetrators of discord. Jósúa’s vocals range from slavering rasps and shrieks to guttural throat-sung incantations and clean-sung sermons as guitars writhe like an aurora borealis irradiating the atmosphere from the Earth as it reaches a desolated close.”
Further information about Nexion‘s sophomore album, as well as preorder links, will be disclosed in due time.
Sundrung
01 – :ÞÞÞ:
02 – Uþarpaspa
03 – Gandr
04 – Norðr ok Niðr
05 – When Raven Steals the Sun
06 – Hymn of the Valkyrjur
07 – Rending the Black Earth
08 – Visions of the Seventh Fire
NEXION
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