1. Narrative pre-information about the album
The focus of this album is the final part of a saga about the return of a legendary ruler, born out of pure blackness and disaster, which will only be presented in more detail in the near future: 150 lunar cycles ago, Ar'ath, as this "Blackcrowned Majesty" is called, according to the calendar of the lands of Yrlyion, whose center is the old rock city of Ka'ath, had covered an entire continent with fire and war until Ka'a himself, the all-brightening sky disk, fell from the firmament and completely broke the previously devastated continent.
Ar'ath herself, the destroyer crowned by pure blackness, had been smashed into a thousand pieces in the process, and since then she has crawled to the north of the shattered afterworld Ma'haxul to unite with her followers and complete her work of destruction on this and all other worlds. Only a few had survived their first hustle and bustle, and only slowly did those beings who had once inhabited the old continent begin to make a new home for themselves in Ma'haxul.
Only Ka'ath, the City of Light, protected by the rocky garb of Mount Nepha'ul, was the only one to survive the all-destroying campaign of Ar'ath and her followers, and since that time it has been preparing for the return of the Broken and Black-Crowned, which prophecy says can only be stopped by the One, the lowest of the Living.
2. Album and song titles
The album "Blackcrowned Majesty" deals with the return of Ar'ath to Ma'haxul. It describes in a musical way how she flows to the north after her destruction and is crowned again by her faithful. Rauthra, dark hero, black and gold shining Hädhrit (a horned hybrid being, in the old world of lowest birth, formerly a slave) and protagonist of this story, travels from northern shores to the interior of the country to join her. From close proximity he witnessed the resurrection of Ar'ath.
Torn apart, disgusted and enthusiastic at the same time, he witnessed her return to the cathedral that had been carved from the bones of the Old Continent in her honor, while Ar'ath, now crowned once more from absolute blackness, received the new oath of allegiance from her followers, the hordes of the endless Night Shadow. Will Rauthra join the Nightshade?
3. Album cover
The album cover is the basis and building block of the story around Rauthra and Ar'ath. It shows the anti-hero of this story and is a hint at his outer appearance as well as his quest. The picture itself, both an oil painting and a commissioned work, was created in the summer of 2019 in the Alps by Ani van Sunnjorck.
4. Background to the musical direction of the album
Tristwood's new album "Blackcrowned Majesty" has, like every new release of this group, a very special focus. This time the band's musical journey led via Nihilist, early Bathory, Oxiplegatz, Morbid Angel, Hellhammer, Skinny Puppy and Killing Joke into the world of the real underground of the rough 1980s and early 1990s.
"All this music sounds just too commercial to me these days. It's all crap, nothing is real. It can't go on like this. If we keep going like this, we're gonna sound like all these plastic death black metal groups. Then I'm out, I tell you," complained Obergrantler Jegger in 2012 at a band meeting. But Deimon and Neru, the other two original members of the formation, finally knew how to calm the aging oddball and guitar twirler when they promised him that the sound would not sound like the 2010s.
"Jegger freaks out when we use real basslines during recording," Deimon finally said at one of the group's meetings two years later. "We have no choice, we need a real bass player. We tell Jegger that using this instrument is completely out of date. Then he'll be sure to go for it," Neru finally replied. No sooner said than done: Jegger was for it, even though he was against it as always.
In 2017 the recordings finally began and three years later the album sounds like this: It creaks, beeps, nothing seems adapted, but radical, and the sound is just as uncontrolled and strange as you'd expect from Tristwood.
Sample:
