Death-doomers Hamferð, will release their new album Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk March 22 via Metal Blade Records. The band recorded the album entirely live in the studio, click-track not included. Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk is a fine mix of massively heavy metal tempered with a foreboding atmosphere of shuddering doom. Hamferð released the first single from this record entitled “Ábær” which you can view below.
Regarding “Ábær” Kapnas says:
“‘Ábær’ is about sailing through a hurricane, through ocean valleys, in a rowing boat and surviving it. The waves crashing, the wind and rain beating and biting you, death greeting you everywhere you look. Perseverance, melancholy, dread, willpower, endurance and doubt interweave with every note and word.”
The narrative concept behind Men Guðs Hond Er Sterk is inspired by a 1915 whaling disaster off the Faroe Island village of Sandvik (home of Hamferð keyboardist Esmar Joensen), when 14 men died driving whales ashore in the stormy bay. The village population witnessed the tragedy from the seaside.
Guitarist Theodor Kapnas states:
“When you see someone in hamferð, you see their apparition. Mostly it’s wives with husbands at sea, who’ve seen them dripping wet in the doorframe in the middle of the night. Typically, in folklore it’s a warning that something bad will happen, and there are several documented episodes of this happening in Sandvik in 1915. So it’s kind of full circle for us.”
Photo courtesy.of Hamferð
