Norwegian black metal legend Tsjuder is now unveiling the album details of their god defying new creation “Helvegr”, which will be released on June 23rd, 2023, via Season of Mist.
In celebration, Tsjuder is releasing the very first track “Gods of Black Blood”, which comes in the form of an ice cold black metal music video and is available below.
Tsjuder comments: “Today ‘Gods of Black Blood’ from our forthcoming album ‘Helvegr’ is unleashed. This is raw Norwegian Black Metal! Choke on it”!
The album will be released on various physical formats, such as cd digipack and coloured vinyl, but also limited edition clamshell box (cd) and LTD vinyl box.
These limited edition come with a bonus album “Scandinavian Black Metal Attack” in which Tsjuder pays a special ode to Bathory.
The cover artwork for “Helvegr” was done by Jonas Svensson and Laura Nardelli.
Pre-orders for “Helvegr” are now available here, while the album can be pre-saved here.
Tracklist:
1. Iron Beast (3:37)
2. Prestehammeren (4:01)
3. Surtr (6:59)
4. Gamle-Erik (3:46)
5. Chaos Fiend (4:02)
6. Gods of Black Blood (5:19)
7. Helvegr (7:36)
8. Faenskap og Død (3:08)
9. Hvit Død (2:52)
Since their inception in 1993, Oslo’s Tsjuder have been responsible for some of the most hate-filled ferocity perpetrated under the banner of True Norwegian Black Metal.
The band’s unholy fire was initially lit when founding members Nag (vocals/bass), Berserk (guitar) and Draugluin (guitar) grew weary of playing death metal and sought out engorged levels of extremity to sate their increasingly profane ambitions. The time was ripe to inaugurate a ceaseless campaign committed to an uncompromising strain of brutally raw black metal, influenced by the primal thrash blasts of Sodom, Kreator, Destruction, Sarcófago and early Sepultura; black metal first wave trailblazers such as Bathory and Hellhammer; and, most vitally, Mayhem’s seminal Deathcrush, and Darkthrone’s game-changer, “A Blaze in the Northern Sky”.
Assuming the Tsjuder name, a moniker plundered from a mythical, murderous Northern tribe, various embryonic line-ups gathered around the all-conquering core of Nag and Draugluin, laying the fearsome foundations for what was to follow with two demos – “Ved Ferdens Ende” and “Possessed” – recorded between 1995-96. But it was with 1997’s EP, “Throne of the Goat”, that the black metal underground really began to sit up and take notice, the release establishing Tsjuder’s reputation as a blasphemous bulldozer hellbent on crushing the insipid and nostalgic in relentless blizzards of sub-zero riffage, punitive blast beats and blood-curdling screams.
Recordings for an inaugural full-length in 1999 were lost to a computer virus, but from the scavenged remnants of these sessions would emerge the Atum Nocturnem demo, an obnoxious foretaste of the group’s debut album, “Kill for Satan”, an international breakthrough slathered in slime-encrusted sacrilege. That damnable release saw the aptly-named Anti-Christian open his Tsjuder account, the drummer blasting a succession of gateways though the underworld, pulverising a punitive march to the band’s malevolent maelstroms.
“Demonic Possession” (2002) and “Desert Northern Hell” (2004) sustained the band’s focus on death, devils and destruction, while ratcheting up the production levels on a barbaric brace of flesh-strippers conjuring a landscape of frost-bitten wastes and foul abyssal realms. With the music press busy dishing out plaudits, the band’s burgeoning confederacy of fanatics were becoming desperate for some Tsjuder live action. Heeding the clarion, the band embarked on a full European tour with fellow countrymen Carpathian Forest. They also recorded a pair of gloriously powerful live performances in 2005, in Norway, which would subsequently be documented on the group’s Norwegian Apocalypse DVD.
Tsjuder would take a deserved hiatus in 2006, with members finding other musical outlets for their creativity; Nag launching heretical black metal outfit Krypt; Draugluin and Anti-Christian doing time with the thrashier Tyrann.
But it wouldn’t be long before the irresistible call of Tsjuder would exert itself once more. The band reconvened, reenergised and eager to make up for lost time, returning to live performances in 2010 before finally unleashing the mighty “Legion Helvete” (2011), a typically uncompromising comeback interspersed with pronounced Motörhead influences on punkish hyper-blasters such as “Slakt”.
It would be another four years before Tsjuder issued the merciless “Antiliv” (2015), a snarling lycanthropic howl of a record, heavy-loaded with vindictive black’n’roll swagger and lashings of buzzsaw guitar.
Tsjuder quickly set about creating the follow-up to “Antiliv”, but musical differences and protracted disputes led to a parting of the ways, with Anti-Christian bowing out after an impressive 20-year tenure with the group. Undaunted, Nag and Draughluin enlisted doyen tub-thumper Jon Rice to provide the requisite drum artillery and continued to work on new recordings – fine-tuning guitar tones and sharpening mixes.
Then COVID-19 struck, the pandemic further stymieing the album’s release as the world tumbled from its fragile axis. But humanity is now benignly settling into its most chronic phase of perpetual abnormality and Tsjuder are steeled again to hoist their inverted cross above the barricades of conciliation. Their latest opus, “Helvegr”, is a devastatingly savage offering, one which fully adheres to the band’s eternal credo of “NO FUCKING COMPROMISE”. After the departure of Anti-Christian, Jon Rice and Eivin Brye has shared the drum duties on Tsjuder’s live performances.
Recording Line-up:
Nag – Bass & Vocals
Draugluin – Guitars & Vocals
Jon Rice – Drums
Guest musicians:
Guitar solo on “Gamle Erik” by Pål Emanuelsen
Guest vocals on “Gods of Black Blood” by Seidemann (1349)
Weblinks:
www.facebook.com/tsjuderofficial
www.instagram.com/officialtsjuder
