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Amon Amarth are back with “Eight Legs Of Thunder,” a new death metal anthem built around Sleipnir, Oden’s legendary eight-legged horse. The track moves with a galloping riff and a chorus made for a crowd to shout back, drawing on Norse mythology while its video takes the story somewhere far removed from the usual Viking imagery.

Directed by Dariusz Szermanowicz, the clip drops the band’s mythology into a rough-edged modern American Western. Cowboys, pickup trucks, and wide-open roads provide the backdrop, while Sleipnir appears in a strange dream sequence.

Szermanowicz explains the thinking behind the video: “With ‘Eight Legs Of Thunder’, together with the band, we wanted to break the traditional metal music video mold once again. We fused the raw, dusty vibe of a modern western with the epic, dark mythology of Oden’s eight-legged steed. It’s a high-octane, cinematic ride packed with cowboy tension, raw action, and a touch of dark humor. We didn’t just want to make a music video-we wanted to deliver a visual knockout.”

“Eight Legs Of Thunder” is the last preview from The Allfather Awakens, due October 2 through Metal Blade Records. The ten-track album opens another chapter for Amon Amarth, while continuing the combination of memorable riffs, melody, and sheer weight that has defined the Swedish band for decades.

Oden remains central to the band’s lyrical and visual world. The Norse “all father” is associated with war, wisdom, death, magic and poetry, and continues to provide Amon Amarth with much of its inspiration. The Allfather Awakens, however, is not a concept record. Instead, it brings together historically inspired stories focused on conflict, sacrifice and the pursuit of something greater.

The new single arrives after Amon Amarth‘s first acoustic release, “Upphaf,” and “Gjallarhorn.” “Upphaf” took a stripped-down approach, while “Gjallarhorn” returned to the band’s familiar heavy attack. Both songs draw on Oden’s mythology, including the story of his sacrifice for knowledge.

According to the ancient tale, Oden removed his own eye and cast it into Mímisbrunnr, the Well of Wisdom, seeking knowledge and foresight beyond mortal understanding. Amon Amarth have turned that story into part of the campaign surrounding the new album, with the message: “Those who received the eye know what must be done. Those who did not: seek it out. Sacrifice your sight. Gain your foresight.”

The writing process for The Allfather Awakens also marked a shift for Amon Amarth. Rather than waiting for a break from touring, the musicians began developing material while they were on the road. Recording took place during two sessions at producer Jacob Hansen‘s studio in Denmark, beginning in spring 2025 and concluding in March 2026.

Guitarist Olavi Mikkonen describes the approach: “We worked on one song at a time and made each song as good as possible. Then we recorded one song at a time until each track was totally finished — drums, guitars, and vocals. Only then did we start on the next one.”

The band also changed its guitar setup, moving away from 5150 amps and returning to Marshalls for a somewhat less modern sound. Amon Amarth write the music before the lyrics, with the finished compositions often determining the direction of the words.

“The Allfather Awakes” was the final song written for the record and supplied the inspiration for its title. Other tracks such as “Eight Legs Of Thunder,” “Kvasir’s Blood” and “Die With A War Cry” continue the album’s historical and mythological focus. The latter features the rallying lines: “Facing destruction / Annihilation / Master your thoughts and mind.” The cover is a portrait of Oden by Tom Thiel, who has previously created seven of the band’s album covers.

More than three decades after forming in Tumba, Sweden, Amon Amarth remain tightly connected as a unit. That sense of loyalty carries through their live shows and recordings, with frontman Johann Hegg delivering the band’s themes through songs such as “We Rule The Waves.”

The track sums up that restless, seafaring spirit: “From cradle until the grave / As long as the sun sets in the west / We rule the waves / Our restless hearts / Have brought us far / As far as Vinland’s shores / We’ve gone further / Than any man has ever gone before.”

Since their 1992 formation, Amon Amarth have built an international following through relentless touring and a catalog that has carried them onto stages with Slayer, Iron Maiden, Slipknot and Pantera. They have also taken over venues including The Forum in Los Angeles and Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver.

Festival appearances have become another major part of the band’s rise. Amon Amarth headlined Wacken Open Air in 2024 before an audience of 85,000 and have twice topped the bill at Bloodstock Open Air in the U.K. They have also played Download four times between 2008 and 2019 and appeared at Summer Breeze eight times from 2003 through 2024, including six headline performances.

The band’s next major North American run will pair them with Dethklok and Castle Rat in 2026. Their growing audience spans generations, from young metal fans to listeners who have followed the band for decades, while the music continues to balance heaviness with an emphasis on uplifting and inspirational themes.

Few examples show Amon Amarth‘s influence more clearly than The Row. The audience tradition of sitting together and miming the motion of rowing a longship is widely traced to the band’s 2009 Bloodstock performance. In 2022, the band turned that tradition into a song with “Put Your Back Into The Oar.” Hegg explained: “we thought it was a good idea to write a song about The Row! This one is for you, the fans, wherever you are–and may Oden guide you as you row to your destiny in uncharted seas!”

The ritual has since appeared at other artists’ shows and major events, including audiences at the 2026 World Cup. Footage from the original performances, however, points back to Amon Amarth fans as the source of the now-familiar spectacle.

With The Allfather Awakens, Amon Amarth are pushing their sound forward while keeping the elements that have carried them through more than 30 years: heavy guitars, melodic hooks, historical storytelling and a live identity built around their audience.

The album will make its way onto the stage this autumn, when the band launches a new production inspired by Oden’s legendary Golden Hall. The result is set to extend the world of The Allfather Awakens into a new Amon Amarth live show.

The post AMON AMARTH Shares Single “Eight Legs Of Thunder” From Upcoming Album “The Allfather Awakens” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.

(written by Islander) When you name your metal band Skumstrike you’re not trying to hide the ball. You’re sending a very clear signal that the music will make no pretenses to artistic refinement, thought-provoking intellect, or avant-garde experimentation. Instead, it brandishes the idea of leaping from the gutter, unclean to the bone, and attacking with […]

The post AN NCS PREMIERE: SKUMSTRIKE — “MASTERY OF SIN” appeared first on NO CLEAN SINGING.

Not every farewell requires one last explosion. Sometimes the right ending arrives through a melody, a memory and the difficult acceptance that it is finally time to let go. German hard rock and heavy metal veterans SINNER have released a new visualizer for “Turn the Page,” one of the most emotional songs from their final […]

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Tobias Forge has confirmed Ghost are on hiatus, and he’s been unusually direct about why. Speaking in a new Kerrang! cover story, the Ghost mastermind said he is exhausted following the completion of the Skeletour in February 2026 — seventy shows across Europe, North America and Mexico — and that for the first time in the band’s career he reached the end of a tour without knowing what to do next. There’s nothing in the diary. There’s no album in progress. And he isn’t going to manufacture one just because the machine expects it.

STREAM THE METAL BREAKDOWN DAILY NOW:

Scott Penfold breaks down the Ghost hiatus on today’s Metal Breakdown Daily — what Forge actually said, the wedding analogy that explains the whole thing, and why the timing of the new film makes more sense than it first looks. Download the free Loaded Radio App on Apple iOS and Google Play and get it every weekday morning.

He doesn’t have an idea, and he’s fine saying so

This is the part that makes the interview worth reading rather than skimming.

Forge’s account: everything was going well right up until he started eyeing the end of the tour and realised, for the first time in Ghost’s career, that he didn’t know what came next. He calls that the get-out-of-Dodge moment.

His position from there is unambiguous. He’s not going to go back and make an album, or force himself to make one for no reason. He needs to want to make a record. He needs to have something to say.

And then the honest bit: every other Ghost album was inspired, had a clear thought behind it and a purpose, and came entirely from his own passion rather than contractual obligation. This time, he says, he just doesn’t have an idea. He wants to do other things. It doesn’t mean anything beyond that — but it does mean there’s nothing in the books, and it’s just a normal hiatus.

That word choice matters. Normal hiatus. Not a split, not a retirement, not a farewell. A band that has been running continuously for over a decade stopping because the person who writes everything doesn’t currently have a reason to write.

Almost nobody at this level admits that out loud.

The weight of it

There’s a second thread running through the interview that’s more revealing than the album talk.

Forge describes the responsibility — a lot of people depending on him, quite apart from everyone buying tickets. For most of his career that’s driven him, and in a good way. But without a clear direction to point at, he doesn’t want that weight on his shoulder. He can carry it when he’s there, in the middle of it. When he’s not there, it becomes too tiring.

That’s a specific and quite modern description of burnout: not the touring itself, but the permanent background hum of being the load-bearing wall for a whole organisation.

He says he’s currently enjoying being at home, working on non-Ghost projects, without the cycle of record-tour-record-tour dictating his life. Anyone who’s followed his various side ventures knows he’s rarely idle — this isn’t a man on a beach.

The wedding line

Asked how close Skeletour came to being a definitive end point, Forge gave the answer that will get quoted everywhere.

He said it was pretty much as close as you can get. And then: when you’re done with the big wedding, you’re not going to get married again immediately after.

He stopped short of calling it a bookend, but said it serves as a great finale — and that if this is it, he’s pleased. Great repertoire, great band, they sound phenomenal. They managed to do an awesome show most nights, and he couldn’t be happier.

“If this is it.” Conditional, not final. But he said it, and he meant it enough to say it to a magazine cover.

We Recommend – Ghost Discography: Every Album Ranked

What he’s stepping back from

The scale of what’s being paused makes the decision more remarkable, not less.

Skeletá debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in May 2025 with 86,000 equivalent album units. Eighty-nine percent of that — 77,000 — was traditional album sales, with vinyl alone accounting for over 44,000 copies. Those are extraordinary physical numbers in 2025.

More significantly, it was the first hard rock album to top the Billboard 200 since AC/DC’s Power Up in 2020.

The tour that followed was enormous. The European leg ran from April 15 to May 24, 2025, Manchester through to Oslo. North America ran July 9 to August 16, Baltimore to Houston. Then a second North American leg from January 21 to February 23, 2026, opening at the Kia Center in Orlando and closing at the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles.

Seventy shows. Three continents. A chart-topping record. And at the end of it, a man saying he’d rather stop than fake it.

The cycle also introduced Papa V Perpetua, the character who fronted Ghost through 2025 and 2026, unveiled in the video for “Satanized.” Every album cycle gets a new identity — the era before this closed when Papa Emeritus IV played his final show.

Check Out – Ghost’s Tobias Forge Sings On A New Accept Cover With Members Of Anthrax And Korn

Why the film’s timing makes sense

Here’s the connection nobody else is making today.

Ghost released 2 Big To Rig this week — their second collaboration with Trafalgar Releasing, hitting cinemas and IMAX with the soundtrack out via Loma Vista. It was captured on 16mm film across two sold-out nights at Mexico City’s Palacio De Los Deportes in September 2025, in front of nearly 40,000 people.

Two things about it matter in light of the hiatus.

Skeletour was a phone-free tour. Which means 2 Big To Rig contains the only pro-shot footage of Papa V Perpetua and his Nameless Ghouls that exists from that entire cycle. If the band is now stepping away indefinitely, this film isn’t a companion piece — it’s the archive.

And it was partly made as a make-good. The film exists to share the Skeletour experience with territories where staging that production wasn’t logistically possible — and specifically for the fans who held tickets to the first of three planned Mexico City dates, which was cancelled when Forge fell ill. Those people are in the film.

That’s a genuinely decent thing to do, and it’s buried in a press release.

Unlike 2024’s Rite Here Rite Now, this one focuses purely on the live performance, with behind-the-scenes interludes on the crew who build that show every night.

What happens now

Nothing, officially. That’s the point.

No album, no tour dates, no timeline. Forge has been clear that this isn’t a breakup and that Ghost will presumably return when he has something to say — but he’s equally clear that he isn’t going to invent a reason.

For a band who spent fifteen years building one of the most elaborate ongoing narratives in heavy music — a rotating cast of anti-popes, a whole fictional church, an album cycle that ended at No. 1 — stopping because the story genuinely ran out is oddly fitting.

The last thing they released before this was “Peacefield”, a song Forge said was deliberately hopeful before everything went sideways.

Go watch the film. It might be a while.

TL;DR

• What happened: Tobias Forge confirmed in a Kerrang! cover story that Ghost are on hiatus with nothing scheduled.
• Why: he’s exhausted after Skeletour’s 70 shows across Europe, North America and Mexico, and for the first time in the band’s career reached the end of a cycle without knowing what to do next.
• On a new album: he won’t force one. He says he needs to want to make a record and needs something to say, and right now he doesn’t have an idea.
• How final is it: he called it “just a normal hiatus” and said nothing is in the books — but also said that if this is it, he’s pleased with how it ended.
• What he’s leaving behind: Skeletá debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in May 2025 with 86,000 units, the first hard rock album to top the chart since AC/DC’s Power Up in 2020.
• Out now: 2 Big To Rig, filmed on 16mm across two sold-out Mexico City shows — and the only pro-shot footage from the phone-free Skeletour.

FAQ

Seventy shows, a No. 1 record, and a man honest enough to say he’s got nothing left to say right now. Respect it, or do you want another album regardless? Tell us below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.

The post Ghost Frontman Tobias Forge Admits He Is ‘Exhausted’ as Band Officially Steps Away on Indefinite Hiatus appeared first on Loaded Radio.

Out Now Better Noise Music Order HERE After chatting with In This Moment‘s guitarist Chris Howorth and feeling his enthusiasm about the band’s new album Witch, it would almost be rude of me not to give it a spin and share my thoughts. Described by frontwoman Maria Brink as a “declaration of inner transformation,” Witch […]

Posted on August 27th 2026, 4:48pm

A little over a year ago, my dear friend and roommate visited her home country of Norway for a month. Obviously, I insisted that she visit Neseblod Records, the infamous record store originally opened by Euronymous (as Helvete) back in the 90s, located in Oslo. While she was there, frightened by its certainly haunted basement section, she found physical copies of both The Road Less Traveled and The Heart of the Matter, Norwegian heavy/power metal troupe Triosphere’s prior two albums—and bought them for me at my enthusiastic request. Both of these records hold a special place in my catalog, memorializing an accidental discovery of what would quickly become one of my favorite power metal discographies ever, small though it is. 12 years since the release of The Heart of the Matter, which slots at #1 on my personal list of favorite power metal albums, I feared that nothing would be able to fill its shoes, even if it was penned by Triosphere themselves. In fact, I feared I would never hear another record like it in my lifetime. Mercifully, Oceans Above, Stars Below is soon upon us, and I couldn’t be happier with it.

Occupying a nifty space where Heart meets Symphony X and taking a few notes from Nevermore, Triosphere’s current sound feels like a significant evolution of what The Heart of the Matter offered, fortified by the same gutsy crunch The Road Less Traveled boasted. Ida Haukland, a criminally undersung power metal icon if there ever was one, delivers a fierce vocal performance here that blows her own past work out of the water. Simultaneously, she delivers lots of low-end bass beef behind T.O. Byberg’s hefty riffs and Marius Silver Bergesen’s screaming leads and inspired solos. Not to be outdone, drummer Kenneth Tårneby outputs a level of percussive ass-kickery hitherto unheard as his reliably excellent cymbal work somehow levels up again and his rhythmic muscularity reaches new PRs. This is a band at their pinnacle, supporting a sound that nobody else currently in the scene replicates, releasing an album of romantically inclined inspirations, soulful exuberance, and an execution so vibrant that it makes my heart and soul soar into the stratosphere.

The best part is that I don’t have to wait long before that skyborne launch sends me alight, and at no point does Oceans Above, Stars Below let me down. First track proper, “Of Tyrants,” is a massive triumph, replete with heavy riffs and a chorus that short-circuits my whole nervous system every time as Ida belts high notes with a brassy fullness no other vocalist in this category approaches. From that point, banger after banger fires out of Triosphere’s chamber. “Oceans Above, Stars Below,” “Monster’s Ball,” and “Through the Phantom Wall” in particular burn barns down to cinders with high-octane lead melodies, effervescent vocal lines, and satisfying chuggy crunches. Mid-album stingers “Lightning in a Bottle,” “Shorelines,” and “Embers” bring more upbeat verve and heart to the affair, while also reintroducing Marius’ trademark bluesy solos that bleed with an emotive quality few guitarists in this scene achieve. The hits keep coming, with closing duo “Orpheus’ Bane” and “Cadence of Chaos” pushing the limits of what I expect from Triosphere’s sound. In the former example, Nevermore’s influence is felt in its chromatic, staccato riffing and full-bodied tones, while the latter offers a tempo switch-up between verse and chorus that abnormally activates my salivatory glands like only the best prog-power writing can.

Memorable, immediate, and sticky, Oceans Above, Stars Below is more than just a collection of great songs. It transcends the standards set by the heavy/prog/power blueprint. Through the use of melodies that would feel at home on any 80s album, metal or otherwise, Triosphere nail the nostalgia that tugs the ears of those who pine for the ways of olde. With their soulful soloing, powerful vocal payloads, and tight transitions, Triosphere exude theatricality that attracts folks drawn to epic cinematics and righteous pyrotechnics. Clever layering and deceptively sophisticated complexities woven into familiar frameworks permit accessible entry points for audiences scouting for intelligent writing and extended staying power. Even the central ballad “Encore” and closer “Gjenklang,” a cello/violin-led instrumental reprisal finale, offer compelling contributions to the whole that those who crave music that touches the heart will surely appreciate.

Oceans Above, Stars Below has more than just something for everyone. If enough people listen and take notes, as they should, it possesses the power to shift the scene, to move the needle. Even if it somehow fails at that, it’s more than I could’ve asked for from one of the most anticipated follow-ups in my rotation. I was sure 12 years was too long to wait, and that nothing Triosphere offered would make me fall in love with them all over again. I was wrong, and I’ve never been happier to be wrong. An album this excellent, this passionately performed, this finely honed, deserves a universal audience. Forget the trappings of genre or category. Oceans Above, Stars Below is a record I’ll be recommending to anyone and everyone. It is the embodiment of everything I love about music, heavy or otherwise. By sharing it, I share a piece of my bleeding heart that Triosphere somehow captured in vivid detail. Thank you, Triosphere, for this gift. I will cherish it forever!

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Rating: Iconic!¹
DR: N/A | Format Reviewed: Stream HELL²
Label: Frontiers Records
Websites: Official | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 28th, 2026

The post Triosphere – Oceans Above, Stars Below Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.

Some albums revisit the past. Reminiscence presents itself as something recovered from it: a musical artefact left behind by a civilization that was at once prehistoric, extraterrestrial and far more advanced than humanity. Italian technical death/thrash metal quartet MISCREANCE are now streaming their sophomore album in full through Decibel Magazine, two days before its official […]

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A Dariusz Szermanowicz-directed music video for it has just arrived.

The post Amon Amarth Celebrate Odin’s Horse Sleipnir With New Track “Eight Legs Of Thunder” appeared first on Theprp.com.

In one month, Detroit post-punk greats Protomartyr return with Hotel Usona, the new album that they recorded with Dave Fridmann, a producer with a whole lot of classics under his belt. We already posted lead single “Sounds We Cannot Hear,” and now Protomartyr have a new one called “Feed The Sewer,” a supremely ugly skronk-rock freakout that manages to be oppressive and cathartic at the same damn time.

The post Protomartyr – “Feed The Sewer” appeared first on Stereogum.