LEAVES' EYES: Audio Sample Of Another New Song Posted Online

A one-minute sample of "Sigrlinn", a new song from LEAVES' EYES — the German/Norwegian band formed by ex-THEATRE OF TRAGEDY singer Liv Kristine Espenaes Krull and members of ATROCITY — is available for streaming below. The track comes off LEAVES' EYES' new album, "Meredead", which will be released on April 22 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland via Napalm Records. The effort will be available exclusively as limited-edition mediabook CD, including bonus track and bonus DVD "Live At The Metal Female Voices Fest", strictly limited-edition deluxe box set and regular jewel case.

Commented Liv Kristine: "When Thorsten [Bauer, guitar] presented his first idea of this song ['Sigrlinn'], I immediately knew that it had to be sung in Norwegian.

"I chose 'nynorsk', which is next to 'bokmaal', one of two official Norwegian written standard languages in Norway.

"I chose the title 'Sigrlinn' for one single reason: phonetically, there is a 'sweet' and traditional sound to the name, which is perfect for my 'sung' poem. I would call it romantic poetry, written in dialogical form between the protagonists Sigrlinn and Sveinung, and the narrating choir or the narrating single voice.

"For Alex [Krull, male vocals], it meant hard work to sing in Norwegian 'dialect' (both my sister Carmen [MIDNATTSOL] and myself supervising him — poor Alex!). However, by the help of phonetic transcription he mastered this task perfectly! Even I had to get used to the thought of singing a complete lyrical piece in my mother tongue. I would say that it makes the song even more personal.

"It felt very important and comfortable to have my sister singing with me (Thank you, my dear Carmen)!

"Thematically, my poem presents the married couple Sigrlinn and Sveinung, living by the fjord. Sveinung leaves his wife for the sake of bringing home more goods, which might be heroic, however, there is no happy end to his journey. Bad weather, the harsh mountainous landscape, Froeya and the three-headed troll play the decisive role to his fate."

The deluxe box set (pictured below) is limited to 1,000 copies and includes the mediabook CD including bonus track and bonus DVD, "Live At The Metal Female Voices Fest", plus pendant (Celtic cross with LEAVES' EYES branding).

Producer/co-vocalist Alexander Krull mixed "Meredead" at Mastersound Studio. The album's artwork was created by Stefan Heilemann and can be viewed below.

"Meredead" track listing:

01. Spirits' Masquerade
02. Étaín
03. Velvet Heart
04. Kråkevisa *
05. To France (MIKE OLDFIELD cover)
06. Meredead
07. Sigrlinn
08. Mine Tåror er ei Grimme
09. Empty Horizon
10. Veritas
11. Nystev *
12. Tell-Tale Eyes
13. Sorhleod (bonus track)

Norwegian traditional songs

LEAVES' EYES recently spent time in Gothenburg, Sweden filming a video for its cover of the MIKE OLDFIELD classic "To France" with director Patric Ullaeus of Revolver Film Company, who has previously worked with DIMMU BORGIR, LACUNA COIL, IN FLAMES, SONIC SYNDICATE and KAMELOT, among others. LEAVES' EYES states, "Patric also was responsible for the video of 'My Destiny'. The location, an impressive old castle is absolutely stunning and we're looking forward to seeing the end result!!"

Kristine previously stated about the upcoming CD: "As we began composing the first song ideas for our fourth full-length album, all of us were very eager to take another step in strengthening both the individual sound and concept of LEAVES' EYES, like we have done album by album. Along with the songwriting process, I made up my mind about the songs' themes, and drowned myself in different sources of literature. Some songs clearly needed lyrics rooted in northern history and culture, as well as having mystical themes.

"Being an Old-English fan, I decided to write some of the lyrics in Old-English, which, of course, included further studies of grammatical and phonetic knowledge, which I really enjoyed doing.

"Next to modern English and Old English, some songs are sung in traditional Norwegian, to keep their strong individuality and focus on certain themes from special genres in Norwegian traditional singing.

"The album is given the title 'Meredead', as one of the songs on the album. It is my own word creation (at least I haven't found it in a dictionary yet),and it may mean both 'dead by/in the sea,' or 'the mortal or killing sea.'

"In my lyrics, you will find traditional themes from Viking literature and Norwegian song tradition, moreover, tales from the Irish isles, some from already existing sources, some made up myself. Sometimes you will hear about men going on adventures, some ending up drowning in the sea, their wives, evil witches, three-headed trolls, or spell-bound princesses, as well as marble halls and blood-thirsty creatures.

"I allowed myself more freedom for the concept of 'Meredead', telling a number of different stories, real, mystical or sometimes maybe even both."