MESHUGGAH's JENS KIDMAN Featured On 'The Last Ballad Of Damrod' Song From 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power'

Roadrunner Records continues its legacy of driving the collision of culture and heavy music with the release of the first original song, "The Last Ballad of Damrod", from the upcoming "The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power (Season Two: Amazon Original Series Soundtrack)". Composed by Emmy Award winner Bear McCreary and featuring vocals from MESHUGGAH frontman Jens Kidman, the song will appear in the highly anticipated second season of the Amazon Original series.

"The Last Ballad Of Damrod (Feat. Jens Kidman)" will be released on August 8, 2024. The song is available to pre-order and pre-save beginning today via Roadrunner Records.

A song about a vicious Hill-troll, "The Last Ballad Of Damrod" is brought to terrifying, screaming life by Jens Kidman, the unforgettable lead singer of Grammy-nominated Swedish extreme metal band MESHUGGAH.

Says McCreary: "When I first glimpsed Damrod, the murderous troll in 'The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power' season two, I knew immediately I had to call Jens Kidman. The aggressive frontman of MESHUGGAH, Jens put a searing brand on 'The Last Ballad Of Damrod' with his blistering vocal performance.

"I am exhilarated to team up with Roadrunner Records, home to some of my favorite bands of all time like GOJIRA and SLIPKNOT, to bring our song to the world.

"My collaboration with Jens, alongside virtuoso drummer Gene Hoglan, on 'The Last Ballad Of Damrod', offers an introduction to my exploration of the darker recesses of J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium and sets the stage for the rest of the sweeping score to come."

"The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power (Season Two: Amazon Original Series Soundtrack)" will be released worldwide on August 23, tied to the highly-anticipated return of the series later this month. Available across all music streaming services, the full episodic score for the second season of the Amazon Original series was composed by Emmy Award winner Bear McCreary ("Da Vinci's Demons"). Following each episode, Amazon Music will release a weekly soundtrack album containing the score for that episode, only available on Amazon Music.

For the epic first season of Prime Video's "The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power", composer Bear McCreary wove a tapestry of symphonic orchestra, bombastic percussion, and folk instruments from across Europe and North Africa, combined with solo vocalists and choirs singing in the iconic languages of J.R.R. Tolkien's books. For the gripping second season, McCreary has built atop that foundation with dynamic new themes and colors, including Bulgarian women's choir and gadulka for Rhûn, children's choir for the pastoral city of Eregion, Hardanger fiddle for new character Estrid, and deathly whispers for the terrifying Barrow-wights.

Season two of "The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power" will debut on Prime Video on August 29, 2024, in more than 240 countries and territories around the world, and in multiple languages.

"The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power" brings to screens for the very first time the heroic legends of the fabled Second Age of Middle-earth's history. This epic drama is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and "The Lord Of The Rings" books, and will take viewers back to an era in which great powers were forged, kingdoms rose to glory and fell to ruin, unlikely heroes were tested, hope hung by the finest of threads, and the greatest villain that ever flowed from Tolkien's pen threatened to cover all the world in darkness.

The first season of "The Rings Of Power" has been an unprecedented success, viewed by more than 100 million people worldwide, with more than 32 billion minutes streamed. The highly anticipated series attracted more than 25 million global viewers on its first day, marking the biggest premiere in the history of Prime Video, and also debuted as the No. 1 show on Nielsen's overall streaming chart in its opening weekend. The show has driven more Prime sign-ups worldwide during its launch window than any other previous content to date. The season finale also created a global cultural moment, with multiple series-themed hashtags, including #TheRingsofPower and others, trending in 27 countries across Twitter for over 426 cumulative hours throughout the weekend.

The second season of "The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power" is produced by showrunners and executive producers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. They are joined by executive producers Lindsey Weber, Callum Greene, Justin Doble, Jason Cahill and Gennifer Hutchison, along with co-executive producer and director Charlotte Brändström, producers Kate Hazell and Helen Shang, and co-producers Clare Buxton, Andrew Lee, Glenise Mullins and Matthew Penry-Davey. Additional season two directors include Sanaa Hamri and Louise Hooper.

In 2024, McCreary released "The Singularity", an epic hard-rock concept album and accompanying graphic novel. The album, which he first began writing as a teenager, features a legendary lineup of rock talent, including Slash (GUNS N' ROSES),Serj Tankian (SYSTEM OF A DOWN),Corey Taylor (SLIPKNOT),Rufus Wainwright, and many more. "The Singularity" was co-written and co-produced by McCreary's brother, Brendan McCreary, who is also the album's primary vocalist. The accompanying story is revealed on the album in three spoken-word monologues lifted directly from the graphic novel, performed by celebrated actors Lee Pace ("Foundation", "The Hobbit"),Danai Gurira ("Black Panther", "The Walking Dead") and Ryan Hurst ("Sons Of Anarchy", "God Of War Ragnarök").

Kidman is the vocalist and the frontman in the internationally acclaimed metal band MESHUGGAH from Stockholm, Sweden. MESHUGGAH was formed in Umeå, Sweden back in 1987 in which Jens was one of the founding members.

Although Jens is known as a vocalist, his musical journey started as a guitarist. He received acoustic guitar lessons at school which he hated because he loved punk and distorted guitars and wanted to play music in the likes of SEX PISTOLS. At the age of 13, his parents gave him an electric guitar which set his music career in motion. It allowed him to form a band with a drummer kid in the neighborhood, Fredrik Thordendal (who later became one of the guitarists in MESHUGGAH),in a small town Sävar, located just north of Umeå, Sweden. Jens's musical style developed throughout the years. His punk influence made him want to listen to metal bands with attitude such as MEGADETH and ANTHRAX. Then the door of metal opened for him. His earlier favorites include IRON MAIDEN, THIN LIZZY, ACCEPT, BLACK SABBATH and METALLICA.

As a singer and guitarist, Jens had been in a couple of bands, THE VOICES, METALLIEN and CALIPASH. After finally settling in with MESHUGGAH, MESHUGGAH released their first self-titled album in 1989, commonly known as "Psykisk Testbild" (Mental Test Pattern [English]). In the earlier albums of MESHUGGAH, you can hear Jens's MEGADETH influence in his compositions and his critical attitudes to modern society in his dark lyrics. Jens continued to play the guitar and sing, however, he decided to shed the responsibility as a live guitar player, in order to concentrate more on his vocals in the year 1993. Since then, guitar has become merely a tool for his compositions. The album "Destroy Erase Improve" (1995) cemented MESHUGGAH's name in the history of heavy metal. One of the fans' most favorite riffs in the song "Future Breed Machine" was written by Jens. MESHUGGAH have released a total of 10 full-length studio albums and toured all over the world including Europe, North America, South America, Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.

In addition to his main music endeavor with MESHUGGAH, Jens occasionally lends his voice to external projects with friends. He's been featured as a guest vocalist in songs by bands such as MUSHROOMHEAD, MONOLITH and HOLY MOSES.

The personal life of Jens is just as extreme as his music taste. He is a motor enthusiast and likes automobiles with engines that scream. His interests range widely from classic cars from the 1950s, hot rods and rat rods, to modern American muscle cars. He also loves watching mixed martial arts.