GORGOROTH Complete Songwriting Process For New Album

Norwegian black metallers GORGOROTH have completed the songwriting process for their upcoming album, "Ad Majorem Sathanas Gloriam". The group will be holding drummer auditions later this month for their planned European tour this autumn and an eventual album recording. More information about the tour and the outcome of the auditions will be made available soon.

As previously reported, GORGOROTH singer Gaahl has appealed the 18-month prison sentence he received in early May for beating a 41-year-old man in what the victim called a ritual attack. Speaking to the U.K.'s Metal Hammer magazine this spring, he stood by his claim that it was in fact he who was the victim of a "revenge" attack, that he acted in self-defense and that he does not remember what happened.

Gaahl explained: 'When you combine the fact that [the alleged victim] obviously failed to achieve his goal and that the environment we live in has this Christian mentality of feeling pity for the weak, it is not surprising that they took into consideration his side of the story."

The 28-year-old singer also shed light on details overlooked by the police — something he believes to be the key factor in the comparatively short sentence.

"He left a weapon in my house that has my blood on it," Gaahl told Metal Hammer. "The police picked up the object but they didn't run any tests to check out whose blood it was. On the first day of the trial, the judge mentioned that I could get anything up to 12 years, but in the end, the prosecution requested 18 months. This is a strong piece of evidence that I will use of the appeal.

"If the appeal does not work, I will have to go to prison for 11 months, 'cause I've already served some of it last year, but it could take one to three years before it happens anyway, because there is a long waiting list for prisons in Norway."

GORGOROTH drew international attention in early February after they were accused of "offending religious feelings" during a concert in Poland. The band were also suspected of breaching the Polish law on protection of animals by displaying the severed and impaled heads of sheep as part of their stage act.