Swedish metallers HAMMERFALL have released “Freedom”the third single from their upcoming album, “Avenge The Fallen”which is due on August 9 via Nuclear Blast Records.
When it comes to the main focus of the album, frontman Joacim Cans mentions “freedom” and the urge to let anyone be who they want to be. It’s represented in the album’s cover, where the bands faithful warrior Hector chose to walk his own path, despite what others tell him to do. Much like HAMMERFALL have and always will do.
“Freedom” promises to deliver high-octane energy and epic storytelling HAMMERFALL fans crave. This is true HAMMERFALL anthem boasts dark, thunderous backing vocals and an epic guitar solo that will send shivers down your spine.
In a recent interview with Australia’s Heavy, HAMMERFALL guitarist Oscar Dronjak spoke about “Avenge The Fallen”. He said: “We’ve been working on it really hard. I’ve been living with the songs for — some songs are five years old, too, so I’ve had them around for a while. I’ve been living with the material for so long, and we actually recorded in November, December and January as well, a little bit. So it’s been done for a while. Now I’m getting anxious to just — I wanna show people what we’ve done because I’m very proud of the album. I think we’ve done one of our strongest albums in recent years, in my opinion. Of course, this can vary a lot for everybody else.”
He continued: “I’m very happy because of three things. First, all the songs on the album, they serve a purpose, so if you take one away, the whole thing is gonna collapse in the middle somehow, even if it’s one of the non-single ones, so to speak, the ones that we don’t think they are the strongest — even the other ones would have an impact if you take them away. And I also think that the production of this album is — and [by] production, I mean the performance as well from us. Because we start with the drums, recording the drums, and then everybody else builds their stuff on top of that. And David [Wallin] He came into this so focused and so energetic and his drumming is so powerful that when he was done, everybody was like, ‘Whoa, shit. We’ve gotta step it up now as well,’ ’cause he put the bar up here. So we kept on going and feeding off of that, of course, when we recorded the bass and guitars. And then during these recordings, Fredrik Nordstromthe producer, and he was gonna do the mixing at the end as well, he said, ‘Oh, shit, guys. I feel pressure now to take it up to a level as well now, because you’ve already reached it.’ So for us, the production is… I think when we recorded the previous album, [2022’s] ‘Hammer Of Dawn’we did a good job with that one too, but it was kind of hard to get the energy because we’d recorded that during the pandemic. So the pandemic had laid a bit of a filter on top. I mean, it’s not noticeable when we released that album, but I think if you compare the two, you can feel the difference, ’cause this one is so much more energetic and so much more powerful in every way. And I also think the songs — I’m very happy with the songs this time. I think they are diverse, they are well written.
“Jehoiakim and I write the songs together,” Oscar added. “So I make a demo of the song with the instruments and a drum machine. Then whatever vocal melodies I have or a chorus, whatever it is, I send it over to him and then he finishes it. So I’m very happy with it.” my work, and I usually am, ’cause if I’m not happy with it, I don’t send it off to somebody else. But what I got back from Jehoiakim This time is better than I think I’ve ever heard him do songwriting-wise. He gave every part of every song the perfect mix of the lyrics with the melodies that he created. That’s part of the reason. ‘Cause when I send off my songs, Yo I know I think it’s a good song, but I just don’t know how good it will be until the stuff comes on top of it, ’cause we write the songs together. So once I got these songs back from him, the ideas, and we had a bit of a back-and-forth with both the music and the vocal melodies and lyrics and stuff, once we were all satisfied, I think we both felt that “This is a strong album from start to finish.”
When “Avenge The Fallen” was first announced in April, Cans said in a statement: “This is our 13th album. How do you still stay relevant after 13 albums? It’s very much like the opening line to the song ‘Avenge The Fallen’: ‘What is the worst, be the one who died, or be the one who survived.’ “Think about it, because it is a tough question.”
He continued: “Do we want to be a band that releases new music just for the sole reason of getting out on the road again or do we want to keep pushing and challenging ourselves? In times where people have less and less attention span, we still think in the form of full-length albums. A few good songs don’t make a strong album. A strong album comes from an album full of great songs and that’s what we’re delivering with ‘Avenge The Fallen’.”
In April, HAMMERFALL unleashed the first single and video from “Avenge The Fallen”, “Hail To The King”a song that was born on the road.
“I started working on ‘Hail To The King’ while on tour in the US with HELLOWEEN,” Dronjak recalled. “By the end of the tour, I was getting close to wrapping the song up, so straight after the Los Angeles gig, I headed to the bus where I worked like a mad man to get the last pieces together. That turned out to be the show where one of my favorite wrestlers, Chris Jerichocame to visit. It was also the show where Fredrik met his idol Frank Bello desde ANTHRAX and Jehoiakim met Jay Rustonproducer for ARMORED SAINT, AVATAR, ANTHRAX, Corey Taylor and more and who after this meeting agreed to produce the vocals for ‘Avenge The Fallen’. I missed all that, but I at least got a great song out of it, haha!”
“Avenge The Fallen” track listing:
01. Avenge The Fallen
02. Burn It Down
03. Capture The Dream
04. Hail To The King
05. Hero To All
06. Hope Springs Eternal
07. Rise Of Evil
08. The End Justifies
09. Time Immemorial
In December 2022, HAMMERFALLwhich started its career in 1997 on Nuclear Blast with its debut album “Glory To The Brave”announced that it was returning to the long-running German label.
HAMMERFALL‘s entire Nuclear Blast catalog, from “Glory To The Brave” to the 2014 album “(r)Evolution” was certified with a diamond award for over 1.5 million worldwide sales.
Following on from “Renegade” (2000),“Crimson Thunder” (2002) and “No Sacrifice, No Victory” (2009),HAMMERFALL‘s fifth studio album, “Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken” Since 2005, it has become the band’s fourth album to go gold in Sweden, while “Crimson Thunder” even went platinum, surpassing 60,000 sales in the group’s home country.
In April 2023, HAMMERFALL released a special platinum edition of “Crimson Thunder” with tons of bonus material.
“Hammer Of Dawn” was released in February 2022 via Napalm Records. The LP was produced by Nordstromwho handled mixing, mastering, drum recording, and shared the duty of recording guitars and bass with guitarists Pontus Norgren and Oscar Dronjak. Jacob Hansen (VOLBEAT) produced the lead vocals.
Photo credit: Tallee Savage
