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ENSIFERUM Unveil New Music Video For ‘Run From The Crushing Tide’ Track
September 16th, 2021

Helsinki, Finland-based melodic folk metal band Ensiferum have filmed a music video for the track ‘Run From The Crushing Tide’, which can be viewed below.

Ensiferum issued eighth full-length studio album Thalassic on July 10th, 2020 through Metal Blade Records.

Thalassic, which translates from ancient Greek as “of or relating to seas”, marks the first Ensiferum album to feature keyboard player / lead clean vocalist Pekka Montin. Meanwhile, Mikko P. Mustonen once again presided over the orchestrations, and violin virtuoso Lassi Logren recorded folk instruments on a few tracks.

“I think we managed to take another step ahead musically and we also utilized the best parts of our old sound,” stated bassist / vocalist Sami Hinkka. “There are lots of Ensiferum’s trademarks: beautiful folkish melodies, ass-kicking riffs, a nice mix of different vocals and great singalong choruses.”

Hinkka also revealed that Thalassic is the first Ensiferum album to be built around a theme. “The idea of it started to brew in my mind when I was doing interviews for Two Paths and many journalists asked if it was a theme album, and I noticed that I was answering all the time that because of the way we compose it’s almost impossible to make a theme album. This really started to piss me off and the decision was made: the next album would have a theme.

“At that time, we already had a few songs almost ready for the next album, and I started to listen to the demos much more from the feeling aspect instead of analyzing them musically. For some reason, all of them took me to a seashore, and the theme was found: something related to sea or water. So I started to read about history, myths and legend around the world that had something to do with the theme, but even though all of the lyrics are obviously inspired by this, I tried my best to keep Ensiferum’s heroic mentality in them.

“In the end, there were too many ideas for lyrics, because I didn’t set myself any boundaries – like all stories would have to be Nordic, etc, and one of my favourite songs on the album tells about Andromeda from Greek mythology. I can’t promise that this way of lyric-writing will be the future of Ensiferum, but at least we did this once.”

Thalassic was recorded and produced in Petrax and Sonic Pump studios by Janne Joutsenniemi, who was involved on the albums Victory Songs (2007) and From Afar (2009). “We like to go to a studio when we have all the songs 99.9% ready so the producer’s main job is to kick our asses while we record,” said Hinkka. “Of course Janne Joutsenniemi is a world-class producer, and we asked his opinion if we were doubting any details. It was really a pleasure to work with him again, and I think this was one of the most easy-going studio sessions I have ever been part of. We are extremely happy with the result.”

The outing can be streamed in its entirety via YouTube below.

The track listing is as follows:

01. ‘Seafarer’s Dream’
02. ‘Rum, Women, Victory’
03. ‘Andromeda’
04. ‘The Defence Of The Sampo’
05. ‘Run From The Crushing Tide’
06. ‘For Sirens’
07. ‘One With The Sea’
08. ‘Midsummer Magic’
09. ‘Cold Northland (Väinämöinen Part III)’
10. ‘Merille Lahteva’ (bonus track)
11. ‘I’ll Stay By Your Side’(bonus track)

Ensiferum’s line-up is as follows:

Petri Lindroos (vocals and guitar)
Markus Toivonen (guitar and vocals)
Sami Hinkka (bass and vocals)
Janne Parviainen (drums)
Pekka Montin (keyboards and vocals)

Music videos were released for the tracks ‘Rum, Women, Victory’ and ‘Andromeda’. In addition, official lyric videos were created for ‘Rum, Women, Victory’, ‘For Sirens’ and ‘Run From The Crushing Tide’. All five clips can also be viewed below.

Seventh studio record Two Paths was released in September 2017 via Metal Blade.