IT’S BEEN FIVE years since Ihsahn’s last album, Ámr, but the prog metal maverick is compensating for the dry spell with some of his most complex material yet. The Emperor leader’s eighth full-length solo record (handily titled Ihsahn) will be a 100-minute double album that casts him back to his symphonic black metal origins: one half heavy, and the other orchestral interpretations. Chatting to Hammer, the multi-instrumentalist reveals that the string-backed songs are already being called “the Emperor album that was never recorded”.
Why have you made a double album of avant garde metal and orchestral music?
“I like to experiment, find new angles to attack the album format. Sometimes it’s more basic, sometimes it’s more out there. This time, I wanted to really play to my strengths, and I’ve been blending soundtrack-like elements with extreme metal since the beginning of Emperor. My ambition, going into this album, was to utilise that –go all in on the extreme, with an orchestral layer that raises the bar tremendously.”
Is your history with metal and symphonic music why you wanted this album to be self-titled?