Lamentari have released OCULI LAPIDIS, the final single from ANTE AURORAM, and its subject is a theft. A man is buried with stones laid over his eyes so that he will see in the afterlife. Someone who hated him in life comes to the grave and takes them, and he wanders blind on the other side.
Vocalist Daniel Lonberg explained where it came from. “'OCULI LAPIDIS' started with the idea of hatred continuing beyond death,” he said, and then the part that made it a song: “There was something deeply cruel about the idea that even dying wouldn't be enough to escape another person's hatred.”
The album title means before dawn, and the six tracks turn on grief, renewal and the line between darkness and light, which for a Danish band writing symphonic extreme metal is less a theme than a working method. Max Uldahl orchestrated the record and arranged the choir. It is the band's second album, after Ex Umbra in Lucem in 2024, and arrives on 13 November.