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?