SATYRICON 'Bringing Clarity' To Rumors

Norwegian black metallers SATYRICON have issued the following update:

"Let's try and bring some clarity to the rumours that have been circulating lately.

"Although [SATYRICON's latest album] 'The Age Of Nero' is now a year old, the project is still very much alive to us as we've been working it more or less non-stop for almost three years.

"The last 12 months since release has been spent relentlessly touring and the fortunate success of the album has taken us to India, Australia, Japan, twice to America, across Europe and around Scandinavia and now we head out on the 'Finale In Black' tour, which will mark the end of the colossal 'The Age Of Nero' project. Once we have done that, we feel the time is right to take a break. A break where we can rest, get some perspective, work on other musical projects and non-musical projects and allow ourselves to figure out SATYRICON's next move. We have some ideas on what we want to do next and one of them is to open a new musical chapter.

"It has never been in this band's nature to rest on our laurels and we won't be doing that either. When the time is right, we will start working on exploring new musical territory and only the future can tell what that will turn into. Taking on challenges like that is something SATYRICON never has been afraid of. On the contrary, it is what has made the band grow.

"We tried to perfect everything SATYRICON has learnt and experienced musically for the last decade on 'The Age Of Nero' and we feel that we reached the goal we set out to achieve. It is time to pave way for something new. No, we won't return to something old. Forget it! All we know is that regardless of what we end up doing, it will still sound unmistakably like SATYRICON.

"We won't tour in the foreseeable future unless it is something so unique that it could be considered an historical event, but we will do one or two select festivals here and there whenever we feel like it. When we return, some of the people surrounding us today might be gone and some might still be with us. We don't know when, we don't know how, but we do know that SATYRICON is still very much alive and this break is something we know we need to do to keep it that way. Until then, see you at 'Finale In Black'!"

SATYRICON vocalist Sigurd "Satyr" Wongraven told Terrorizer.com that the band's upcoming concert in London, England (on December 20) will mark the beginning of a new phase in the group's evolution. "From then on, there are going to be a lot of changes in the SATYRICON camp," he said. "After we take a long touring break and come back a couple of years later, certain people may not be with us any longer. Although we won't be doing anything overly dramatic, we'll be trying quite a few different things, which I think is going to be really good for SATYRICON. The reason we're doing that is so we can continue to develop our sound. At the moment we are still enjoying what we do, but if that continues any longer it'll undoubtedly stagnate, so we need to ensure that doesn't happen. And moving in different musical directions is definitely a good way to go about it."

"As an artist, there are so many new things I'd like to do," Satyr added. "And one of them is to work on some songwriting for SATYRICON, though from an entirely different angle. For example, we may chose to go for a similar tone, but use a different set of instruments in the next record. Maybe there are also other recording techniques, which could add a different element to our work and open up fresh musical territory. Our last three releases all follow a certain style and pattern, and we want to create a record that's radically different from the others. Though the foundation of SATYRICON's sound — my songwriting and Frost's signature drumming — will always remain unchanged."