ENSLAVED Releases Sea Shanties 'Fire Marengo' And 'Anna Lovinda'

Norwegian progressive trailblazers ENSLAVED have revealed their latest creation — two unique recordings of sea shanties, made in collaboration with the Storm Weather Shanty Choir, who hail from Bergen, Norway's great sailing ship the Statsraad Lehmkuhl.

The shanties are titled "Fire Marengo" and "Anna Lovinda". "Fire Marengo" is a traditional shanty, while "Anna Lovinda" was written by the late sailor and Norwegian cultural figure Erik Bye.

ENSLAVED explained the collaboration: "ENSLAVED was formed on the western edge of Norway, where mountains fall into the sea and history is carried by wind and tide. Bergen is not simply a coastal city; it is a threshold — between land and ocean, between myth and lived experience. The sea is not scenery here. It is memory, labour, departure and return.

"Among the most powerful living symbols of this heritage is Statsraad Lehmkuhl, the great Bergen tall ship that still sails the world's oceans. Around this vessel lives and breathes the shanty tradition — songs born of rhythm, rope, salt, and collective effort. From this environment emerged Storm Weather Shanty Choir.

"Our connection to the ship began in 2014, when the Tall Ships Races concluded in Bergen. We were invited to compose and perform a commissioned piece on the deck of Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Metal echoed across the harbor that evening — a meeting of ancient wind-powered technology and modern amplified ritual. It felt less like contrast and more like continuity.

Since then, a friendship has grown — particularly with Haakon Vatle, director of the ship's foundation and one of Norway's most devoted custodians of the shanty tradition. He often remarks that sailors were the first metalheads — people who faced elemental forces daily and answered them with song. There is truth in that. Shanties were not entertainment; they were functional incantations — rhythm as survival.

"In November 2025, during the choir's 20th anniversary concert in Bergen, we joined forces on the traditional 'Fire Marengo' and the Norwegian shanty 'Anna Lovinda', written by the late sailor and cultural figure Erik Bye. The collaboration felt less like fusion and more like recognition — two expressions of the same coastal inheritance meeting at the center.

"After the performance, it was clear that this convergence should not remain ephemeral. We met again in early 2026 to record the material — not as novelty, but as continuation. Because at the centre — at mið — we find not isolation, but shared origin. Wind, rhythm, voice. The same pulse that once moved sails now moves amplifiers. The same call-and-response that coordinated labour now shapes modern ritual.

"The sea remembers. And so do we."

Never faltering, Norway's iconic ENSLAVED continue to exist as one of the most original and dependable components in our scene's indestructible backbone. Possessing the reputation as one of the most riveting live acts around, they never fail to offer us talent of the highest caliber, always doing justice to their signature black/progressive sound.

ENSLAVED was formed in 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson, releasing their first demo "Yggdrasill" in the summer of 1992, their legendary mini-album "Hordanes Land" coming out in 1993, and with their debut full-length "Vikingligr Veldi" arriving in the spring of 1994.

ENSLAVED is a band in stellar form — a band at its most existentialist and self-conscious, proud Bergeners bearing the torch of their hometown's extraordinary musical history. Their most recent material shows ENSLAVED at their most unleashed and thought-through — a lethal combination unfurling a potential that's easily rekindling the furor of their early works while dancing gracefully through their most ambitious, most haunting and most musical tunes yet. A contradiction? Life itself is a contradiction. And yet we all live to prove it wrong.

ENSLAVED is:

Ivar Bjørnson - guitars
Grutle Kjellson - vocals
Arve "Ice Dale" Isdal - guitar
Håkon Vinje - keyboards, clean vocals
Iver Sandøy - drums

Photo credit: Marlene Grygo

Left to right in photo: Grutle Kjellson (ENSLAVED),Ivar Bjørnson (ENSLAVED),Roald Kaldestad (Storm Weather Shanty Choir),Haakon Steinar Vatle (Storm Weather Shanty Choir).