Empyrium stream their sixth full-length album, »Über den Sternen«, out now via Prophecy Productions

German dark metal/neofolk duo Empyrium stream their brand new album, »Über den Sternen«, which was just released on February 26th, 2021 via Prophecy Productions.

Empyrium’s sixth full-length album is available now as a digipak CD, art book, gatefold vinyl (with black, green and gold variants), or as a box set featuring limited edition clear vinyl and a bonus 7”.

The band comments: “We’ve just released »Über den Sternen«, our first album in years. It’s full of dark folklore and romanticism. »Über den Sternen« is as Empyrium as it gets amalgamating elements from every phase of the band with fresh colours and hues to a new epic grandeur. It is an ode to the nocturnal sky and the eternal mysteries it unfolds with every nightfall. The name is based around a quote from German poet Friedrich Schiller, »Über den Sternen«, which translates to »Above The Stars«. It’s a perfect title for an Empyrium album considering that our band name meant the farthest, fiery sphere of heaven in medieval cosmology.”

“It was a long journey to this day and it’s great to read all the fantastic reactions to the album so far. Creating »Über den Sternen« was a part of our life for quite an extented period of time, now finally it can become a part of your lifes too!” they adds.

Tracklisting:
01. The Three Flames Sapphire
02. A Lucid Tower Beckons On The Hills Afar
03. The Oaken Throne
04. Moonrise
05. The Archer
06. The Wild Swans
07. In The Morning Mist
08. Über den Sternen

From Prophecy Productions:

With their sixth full-length, »Über den Sternen«, an allegorical German rendering of their band name meaning »Above The Stars«, Empyrium continue to draw from the magic and spirits of wild places, nature’s beauty, and human relics of ages long past. »Über den Sternen« echoes this reconciliation of the old with the new on a musical level as well. The Franconian duo has brought the power of electric guitars and even those harsh vocals back, which marked their early works and stood strong upon the band’s melodic black metal foundations. Yet Empyrium also keep the dark folk style, which the Germans had progressively leaned towards with their later albums.

What used to appear as a fork in their musical development has now merged into one breath-taking sound. The combined force of mastermind, multi-instrumentalist, clean and extreme vocalist as well as producer Markus “Schwadorf” Stock and classical singer Thomas Helm, who lends his amazing voice also to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, is painting a radiant sonic picture. It comes with the melancholic grounding of the sophomore album »Songs Of Moors & Misty Fields« (1997), adds brushstrokes of the fairy-tale tempera colours of »Where At Night The Wood Grouse Plays« (1999), yet also uses hues from the selection on the Dead Can Dance infused folk-palette that Empyrium previously employed on »The Turn Of The Tides« (2014). The crowning varnish is diligently crafted from rougher elements that reach all the way back to the Germans’ legendary debut »A Wintersunset…« (1996). “We have found a new balance”, Markus Stock emphasises. “We have finally reconciled our vintage sound from the early days with the acoustic expression of the later Empyrium.”

Staying true to the Romantic tradition, Empyrium continue to take inspiration for their lyrical flights of fantasy from the local myths, ancient places, and natural wonders of the Rhön Mountains and their Lower Franconian homeland in the West of Germany. A circle is closing, and with Empyrium’s label Prophecy Productions, which were originally founded with the mission to release the band’s debut album, celebrating their 25th anniversary in 2021, it happens in more than one way.

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well