NEW FROM NORWAY: ENSLAVED’S “THOUGHTS LIKE HAMMERS” LYRIC VIDEO AND KVELERTAK LIVE

The new album by Norway’s Enslaved, RIITIIR, comes out Sept. 28 in Europe and Oct. 9 in North America on Nuclear Blast. It’s already available for pre-order in a variety of bundles at this location. The deluxe digi-pak edition comes with a bonus DVD that includes segments on the making of RIITIIR, the band, the recording studios, and the artwork. But the coolest looking bundle is the one with the bone-and-charcoal-splatter double-LP gatefold, which is limited to 1,000 copies.

About three weeks ago NPR debuted a long new song from  RIITIIR called “Thoughts Like Hammers”. Now the band have debuted a lyric video for the song, which you can watch after the jump. The song is such a trip. It’s part stoner metal, part indie rock, part prog, and the whole package is wrapped up in a blackened skin. It’s also an exception to the rule around here, because it includes clean vocals as well as scalding rasps, but man, the clean vocals are really good.

I usually find lyric videos to be distracting and annoying. Most of the time I’d rather just hear the music. But at least the words to “Thoughts Like Hammers” aren’t ridiculous. To the contrary, they’re interesting. So yes, I think the video is worth seeing, especially if you haven’t yet heard this song.

But the “Thoughts Like Hammers” video isn’t the only goodie from Norway we’ve got in this post. Last night I also watched a professionally filmed and edited video of Kvelertak’s live performance at the AREA4 festival in Germany on August 18. It’s about 22 minutes long, and I ate up every minute. To be fair, I’m already a Kvelertak fan, but I have a feeling that even people who haven’t yet gotten into their recorded music will rock out to this jam.

I know that I’d give a lot of blood to see these dudes, in person, in a live setting, and I’m finally going to get the chance because they’ll be embarking on a U.S. tour with Converge and Torche in October and November that includes a Seattle stop. If you missed that news, visit this post to get the details. Hopefully, it will not be necessary to give blood at the door, but I’m just sayin’ that I’d be ready.

Unfortunately, the video of Kvelertak’s performance at AREA4 in Germany isn’t embeddable, so you’ll have to go to the Rockpalast site via this link to watch it. Seriously, it rocks hard.

Now here’s the Enslaved video: