Ferndal have released Asuras with a video, the first song from the German band's third album, which carries the same title and arrives on 4 December.
The dates are the story. Markus Stock produced the record at Studio E in autumn 2024, and the behind the scenes footage the band put out with the single is dated November 2024, filmed during the recording of the title track. That puts more than two years between a finished album and its release, which is a long time to sit on forty minutes and fifty seven seconds of music.
What is on it is a genuine hybrid rather than a black metal record with strings added. The band put guitars, cello, screams and clean vocals on equal footing, and describe the mixture as aggression with baroque grace.
Sorathiel wrote the music and the lyrics, which go after seduction and manipulation, power and ideology, and the way those things hollow a person out until the will is gone. A longing for liberation arrives at the end of that, on the threshold of something else.
Azares made the video. Joris van Gelre of Bezweering and Nodfyr guests on the album, which comes out on CD and digitally.