Danish black metal duo Angstskríg release video for the new single ‘Luk Dine Øjne’

This past Friday March 3rd, the Danish black metal duo ANGSTSKRÍG released the third single ‘Luk Dine Øjne’ (Close Your Eyes’) from its sophomore album ‘Angstkrig‘ set for a March 31st release. ‘Luk Dine Øjne‘ features guitarist Nils Courbaron from Sirenia. The song and video deals with in general with stress and anxiety as a part of the album theme, and specifically the blessing and curse of AI technology and its potential influence on the human mind.

ANGSTSKRÍG elaborates on the theme and video:

“Like robots are taking over manual labor, AI will gradually take over thinking. This is both a blessing, as it frees up mental capacity for creative thinking, and a curse, because if human beings don’t start to understand themselves as “hackable animals” we will see more mental and intellectual crisis caused by (social media) algorithms like we’ve seen with Brexit, the Trump election and most recently the anti-vaccine online cult. We seek to illustrate this contradiction by, on a conceptual level, using AI-generated animations creatively and, on a visual level, let the AI-animations hijack our entire beings”.”

Danish black metal duo ANGSTSKRÍG returns with its sophomore album ‘Angstkrig‘ (Danish for ‘anxiety war’) following up on the 2021 debut album ‘Skyggespil‘. ‘Angstkrig‘ was created during the pandemic and completed, as the world re-opened. This made its mark on the album’s seven black metallic, genre-fusioning and non-compromising songs, which revolves around and confronts the modern world’s inhuman pressure on the human.

The two Blackened Brothers formed ANGSTSKRÍG in 2019 and intoxicated by inspiration, they quickly wrote the material for the debut album ‘Skyggespil‘ (Danish for ‘shadow play’), which was recorded with producer Frederik Brandt Jakobsen, just as a pandemic world locked down. ‘Skyggespil‘ was released in 2021, and the duo remained obscure, while the album’s convincing songwriting and unique Nordic tone made the rumours of ANGSTSKRÍG spread widely.

ANGSTSKRIG has recently announced a performance at this year’s Horizon 23 festival in Finland at the beginning of June, and more shows will be announced in the time to come.

The story about ANGSTSKRÍG took its beginning towards the end of the last millennium. From a young age the duo were taken under the wing of a common mentor, by whose guidance they taught themselves how to play, write and perform. Here, their urge to create, their artistic curiosity and wealth of ideas as well as the need to challenge boundaries and convictions was founded. And the duo’s common musical journey began. Though life circumstances and choices separated the two and took them down diverging paths, where one pursued the road of knowledge, the other a path of entertainment, they never lost touch, and the idea to reunite remained. So after a decade of gaining invaluable individual experiences, life was now taking new dramatic turns and the time was right to reunite as the two Blackened Brothers in ANGSTSKRÍG.

Since the inception, ANGSTSKRÍG‘s vision has been to create music challenging both themselves and the listener. “No comfort zone” is the underlying principle for the duo for which it is essential to convey thinking and to challenge conventions and thus participate in creating a basis for a better world. Like everything else in this universe, ANGSTSKRÍG is in a state over perpetual becoming. This on both a personal and a musical level – and for the band there are no taboos, only those to break – and one of the most important is the mental health which we all must consider. And which music is better to express discomfort than metal?

The seven tracks on ‘Angstkrig‘ encloses the listener in a great sounding darkness which draws especially from both Norwegian black, Swedish melody, Danish groove and Icelandic melancholy. The music is riff based and conveys a solemn vibe spreading throughout the band’s genre fusioning music that carries black metal as the main musical characteristic. The album features guest appearances by the guitarist Mendel (ex-Aborted), Nils Courbaron (Sirenia) and Carl Mörner Ringström, while Danish rapper Jøden delivers a heavy, well-delivered verbal performance.

‘Angstkrig‘ is recorded, mixed and mastered by Frederik Brandt Jakobsen in Hikikomori Studio, the artwork is created by NM.AAR, and the album is released March 31st 2023 through Despotz Records.

Credits: 
Music & Lyrics: Angstskríg
Producer: Frederik Brandt Jakobsen & Angstskríg
Mix & mastering: Frederik Brandt Jakobsen
Artwork: NMAAR
Photo: Daniel Buchwald