HAMMERFALL has announced their 13th studio album, Avenge The Fallen , which will be released on August 9th via Nuclear Blast Records.
That’s right, less than a year after the final bow of the “United Forces” tour, the quintet, consisting of guitarist Oscar Dronjak , singer Joacim Cans , bassist Fredrik Larsson , guitarist Pontus Norgen and drummer David Wallin , is back with ten brand new, solid classic pieces Heavy Metals back.
“This is our 13th album ,” says Joacim Cans proudly. “How can you still stay relevant after 13 albums? It’s kind of like the first line of the song ‘Avenge The Fallen’: ‘What’s worse, being the one who died or the one who survived.’ Thinks “Think about it because it’s a difficult question.”
He continues: “Do we want to be a band that releases new music just to get back on tour, or do we want to continue to push and challenge ourselves? In times where people have less and less attention spans, we’re still thinking in the form of complete 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 deliver with Avenge The Fallen.”
To give fans a taste of what to expect, the band releases the first single and video “Hail To The King.” A song born on the streets…
“I started working on ‘Hail To The King ‘ when I was on tour with HELLOWEEN in the US ,” remembers Oscar Dronjak . “Towards the end of the tour I was close to finishing the song, so straight after the concert in Los Angeles I went to the bus where I worked like a madman to get the final pieces together. That was the show, where one of my favorite wrestlers, Chris Jericho, came to visit. It was also the show where Fredrik met his idol Frank Bello from ANTHRAX and Joacim met Jay Ruston, the producer of ARMORED SAINT, AVATAR, ANTHRAX, Corey Taylor and others , who after that meeting agreed to produce the vocals for Avenge The Fallen. I missed all that, but at least I got a great song out of it, haha!”
