U.K.-based blackened death metal group HECATE ENTHRONED will release "Embrace Of The Godless Aeon", its first album in five years (and its debut for new label M-Theory Audio), on January 25. The LP — which features cover artwork by Nestor Avalos (BLOODBATH, ROTTING CHRIST, THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER) — can be pre-ordered now on CD and red splatter vinyl at this location. A limited-edition deluxe box set that includes exclusive purple vinyl and cassette editions of the album, a signed photo card and other collectibles is also available. The official video for a new song from the album, "Revelations In Autumn Flame", can be seen below. Portions of the clip were shot during the group's recent performance at the Tabernacl Chapel in Llandundo, North Wales, which bassist Dylan Hughes says provided an epic setting in which to film. "Where better to shoot this video than in a chapel during a dark cold December in North Wales?" he says. "The show was set up on the pulpit in front of pews filled with a congregation of metal-fueled blasphemers, their breath visible in the cold, dank air. The atmosphere created the malevolent and darkly energetic performance caught in the video, recorded by our good friend Dan Cookson and edited by Jeff Grindstopher of Grindstopher Productions. Watch closely throughout for the ongoing threat from the enveloping icy embrace of Cthulhu." According to Hughes, "Revelations In Autumn Flame" was written "about modern religious fundamentalism being a reaction to a rise of secularism, and a rise in people being more educated about the universe and abandoning belief in God because of it. It's about theistic religion being almost in its death throes and becoming more extreme because of it, but a more enlightened mankind will come through this and 'rise like a phoenix from the flames.'" One of the U.K. underground's longest-running and most respected acts, HECATE ENTHRONED has been praised by the likes of Terrorizer for its "mixture of death metal aggression with black metal atmosphere." "Embrace Of The Godless Aeon" — the band's first recording with vocalist Joe Stamps, who joined the band in 2015 — sees the group continue to deftly mix black with death, modern with classic and extreme with symphonic. The album, which features guest vocals on three songs by Sarah Jezebel Deva (CRADLE OF FILTH, THERION, MORTIIS), was co-produced by Dan Abela (VOICES, THE ANTICHRIST IMPERIUM). Says Hughes: "This album with its epic sweeping orchestration and heavy aggression represents a new chapter for us cementing the chemistry of the current lineup and our partnership with M-Theory. A welcome return from Sarah Jezebel Deva hints to the grandiose flavor of earlier releases, but this time, it's tempered with a guitar and drum sound forged from solid steel and then edged by a razor-sharp production from Dan Abela. The summoning of unholy flame and terror that is the cover art is an oil painting commissioned from in-demand satanic artist Nestor Avalos and begins your visceral journey through cold bleak landscapes, crushing tormented seas and searing shards of heavy metal." Originally co-founded in Wales by guitarist Nigel Dennen in the mid-1990s, HECATE ENTHRONED is dedicated to delivering their own brand of evil metal with little regard to politics or the trends of popular demand. The group's 1997 debut, the Andy Sneap-produced "The Slaughter Of Innocence, A Requiem For The Mighty" (Blackend Records), was a seminal release in the then-burgeoning orchestral black metal movement. Since then, several full-lengths and EPs and numerous live performances have firmly established the band as one of extreme metal's most important voices, a sentiment that "Embrace Of The Godless Aeon" firmly reinforces.
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