Axioma Ethica Odini Artwork

Norwegian progressive black metal band ENSLAVED revealed the artwork for its upcoming album “Axioma Ethica Odini” today. The album’s cover artwork was created by Truls Espedal, who has painted every ENSLAVED album cover since 2001’s “Monumension.”

Bassist and vocalist Grutle Kjellson comments: “On every new album cover, me and (rhythm guitarist/songwriter) Ivar (Bjørnson) come up with the idea of what the cover art shall include in terms of elements, symbolism and so forth. After that, we contact Truls and tell him about our ideas for the cover art. Then we arrange a meeting where we sit down for a couple of hours making sketches. Truls also has the opportunity to come up with his own ideas of how we can transform our original ideas the best possible way. He has made a masterpiece this time as well! The cover art is simply amazing! Amazing…”

Artist Truls Espedal comments: “I’m always excited about working with ENSLAVED, which is the reason I feel that too much time goes by between releases – ha, ha! But once again I sat down with Ivar and Grutle, and their ideas were more complex and interesting than ever. Also, their expectations and confidence that I’m able to come up with something better than before pushes me to set the bar even higher. This time around, we set out to expand further what we have done on earlier works: mixing the figurative paintings with the ‘symbolic’ design even more. By doing this, I feel that we are able to convey a lot more atmosphere, story, and a visually more interesting cover throughout. Hopefully other people will think the same. Good times.”

“Axioma Ethica Odini” is the band’s eleventh studio album with a release date of  September 27th in Europe through Indie Recordings and September 28th in North America through Nuclear Blast Records. The album was produced by Bjørnson, Kjellson, and keyboardist/backing vocalist Herbrand Larsen.

“Axioma Ethica Odini” is the follow-up to 2008’s “Vertebrae” which became the third consecutive ENSLAVED record to win the Spellemann award (referred to as the Norwegian Grammy) after 2004’s “Isa” and 2006’s “RUUN.”

ENSLAVED will soon embark on their European “Circling Above and Within Tour” in October to promote “Axioma Ethica Odini” and will be supported by NEGURA BUNGE. As revealed on Polyrhythms yesterday ENSLAVED has been confirmed to headline the 2010 edition of the GREAT INDIAN ROCK FESTIVAL.

Enslaved