On April 28th, 2023, Elvenking will continue their epic quest with “Reader Of The Runes – Rapture”, the sequel to their 2019 record, “Reader Of The Runes – Divination”. Forging a potent magic stronger than ever by evoking the essence of heavy metal, pagan metal, folk and melodic death metal, Elvenking set sail to horizons more distant than ever before. Following previously-released album singles, “Rapture” and the epic anthem “The Hanging Tree”, Elvenking have shared a music video for “Bride Of Night”, featuring former DRACONIAN vocalist Heike Langhans.
Says the band: “We are proud to present our new song and video “Bride of Night”. It surely represents the more melodic side of our sound, yet dark and melancholic. We know that a lot of our fans love this side of Elvenking, so this is also a gift to you. “Reader of the Runes – Rapture” will collect all of the shades of our sound from the more aggressive ever, to songs like Bride of Night so, by listening to the entire album you will travel through a multitude of nuances and atmospheres – we cannot wait for you to hear it in all its epicness! Heike Langhans offered her beautiful voice in the chorus backing Damna vocals. The amazing video is once again directed by Matteo Ermeti who did with us “Silverseal” and he couldn’t better envision the story – a glimpse of painful romance that captures one of the chapters of the story.”
Pre-order “Reader Of The Runes – Rapture” HERE.
Ever since their inception in 1997, Elvenking mastered their way to their own identity with courage and bravado, leaving behind the shackles of genres step by step before they truly broke out with their 2014 monument “The Pagan Manifesto”. Elvenking have been defying all genres, now feeling quite at home in their very own enchanted realm. With “Rapture”, the Italian collective delivers part two of their monumental “Reader of the Runes” trilogy, and an epic metal quest of woe and despair, wrought with mysterious figures, dark magic and an altogether mesmerizing autumnal flair reminiscent of a forest glade during an Indian Summer. It’s more than just a metal album. It’s a moving story set to fabulous songs, bridging the gap between fantasy and reality. Many times before, Elvenking have weaved powerful magic into the world. This time, they truly came into their own, wresting their best effort yet from a global pandemic.
“Reader Of The Runes – Rapture” was written between 2020 and 2022, and was recorded between May and October 2022 by the band and renowned producer Scott Atkins (Cradle of Filth, Behemoth) who also took over mixing and mastering duties.
“Reader Of The Runes – Rapture” Tracklist:
- Rapture
- The Hanging Tree
- Bride of Night
- Herdchant
- The Cursed Cavalier
- To the North
- Covenant
- Red Mist
- Incantations
- An Autumn Reverie
- The Repentant
“Reader Of The Runes – Rapture” Album Artwork
“How would we have approached musically the second chapter of the Reader of the Runes trilogy? That’s a question we asked ourselves many times before finalizing the songwriting process.” Damna and Aydan explain. “Working both on ROTR Part 2 and Part 3 at the same time, really helped us spread the songs, the lyrics and the atmospheres on the whole remaining part of the story as the development of the events needed a strong backing from the music. So, Part 2 is indeed darker, it needed to be tragic and violent and this gave us the chance to fully breathe the soundscape we already had in mind as we started to write songs in early 2020. We feel that with this album we have cast a milestone and set a further limit in what we can do by mixing wisely what we deeply love in metal. We are very satisfied with all the shades that compose these eleven songs; altogether they make a canvas we are very proud of. Part 3 instead will explore the disclosure of all the mysteries narrated in the first two chapters and for this very reason you’ll have to expect even further different musical nuances in the future of this trilogy.”
