LEAVES' EYES: New Album Title, Artwork Unveiled

LEAVES' EYES — the German/Norwegian band formed by ex-THEATRE OF TRAGEDY singer Liv Kristine Espenaes Krull and members of ATROCITY — has set "Meredead" as the title of its new album, due on April 22 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Release dates for other territories will be announced soon. Producer/co-vocalist Alexander Krull is currently overseeing the CD's final mix at Mastersound Studio. The album's artwork was created by Stefan Heilemann.

Commented Kristine: "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."

LEAVES' EYES recently parted ways with bassist Alla Fedynitch "for personal reasons." The group played the last show of 2010 — at the Metal Female Voices Fest on October 24 in Wieze, Belgium — with Dutch session bassist J.B. van der Wal (ABORTED, DR. DOOM).

J.B. van der Wal previously played with LEAVES' EYES at the Bloodstock Open Air and Summer Breeze festivals as well as on the band's last U.S. tour.

LEAVES' EYES's most recent album, "Njord", was re-released in May 2010 as a "special fan edition," containing three previously unreleased tracks — "At Heaven's End", "Angus and the Swan" and an acoustic version of "Irish Rain". The set also features an appearance by Liv's sister, Carmen Elise Espenaes from MIDNATTSOL, as a guest vocalist on "Irish Rain". The special fan edition comes with a noble matt and glossy foil printed slipcase, which is strictly limited.

The "special fan edition" of "Njord" consists of the "Njord" digipack, including two bonus tracks, as well as the brand new bonus CD "At Heaven's End", which contains seven non-album tracks, and the "My Destiny" video.