Veteran Norwegian black metallers EMPEROR have announced a livestream event, “A Night Of Emperial Wrath 2021”, to be held on May 23.
The band states: “2021 marks 30 years since the formation of EMPEROR. With the current state of the world, it’s been impossible to go ahead with scheduled plans. We now welcome you to join us in an exclusive streaming event. The show will take place at Notodden Theatre, 23rd of May. The setlist will feature tracks from the entire catalogue, as well as very special guest appearances from original bass player Mortiis, who appeared on the ‘Wrath Of The Tyrant’ demo, ‘As The Shadows Rise’ EP and ‘Emperor’ mini album, and ex-drummer Faust, who appeared on the ‘As The Shadows Rise’ EP, ‘Emperor’ mini album, as well as the landmark album, ‘In The Nightside Eclipse’.”
To purchase tickets, go to this location.
In 2019, EMPEROR frontman Ihsahn (real name: Vegard Sverre Tveitan) dismissed the idea of the band writing and recording a comeback album. The group’s last studio LP, “Prometheus – The Discipline Of Fire & Demise”, was released in 2001 and was written entirely by Ihsahn. EMPEROR broke up shortly thereafter, with Ihsahn going on to pursue a solo career, while guitarist Samoth (real name: Tomas Thormodsæter Haugen) partook in a variety of bands, including SCUM and ZYKLON. EMPEROR has reunited frequently in ensuing years to perform live, but has continually resisted calls to release new material, something Ihsahn says won’t change anytime soon.
“As you know, EMPEROR developed, at some point, I ended up making more and more of the music and eventually, I did all the music,” he told Loud TV. “We’d rather stop at the level where we were all creatively involved, rather than doing it for keeping the logo or for any of those reasons. At this point, there’s so much nostalgia attached to what we do, and we’ve been in the privileged position that people have developed similar relationships to these old songs that we did, as we are fans, to other bands. It’s a very humbling position to be in. If you turned it around, what kind of EMPEROR could we possibly do? What kind of EMPEROR could we possibly do? We should make something that sounds like old EMPEROR? Or should we do something like EMPEROR would sound today? If it was up to me, EMPEROR would sound like my solo records because that’s how I write metal. It’s kind of a lose-lose thing. The whole point of black metal, people want something that is real and has integrity of what it is. At this point, none of us can see any reason to do that beyond what we already do. Just speaking for myself, I get to play all these old songs to people who have this strong relationship to it, in a similar way as I as a fan, have. But I also get to do my solo albums and continue that musical journey, and I see no reason to change that. We are at a very fine position now that we all just get to do what all of us wants. If there’s some kind of festival or some kind of show that doesn’t fit into our schedule, that’s fine. We do just the stuff that is cool for us to do.”
