Ahead of the release of the new Arcturus album, Arcturian, in May, Prophecy have released the opening track, ‘The Arcturian Sign’, as a single today on Spotify.
It’s been 10 years since Arcturus last released any new studio material, with the Season of Mist-released Sideshow Symphonies, which showcased the new ICS Vortex-fronted lineup of the band. Despite not reaching the heights of the masterpiece that was 2002’s The Sham Mirrors, nonetheless it was great to see the band trying to remain more of an active project than had been the case in past years.
However, after just a string of live shows in the interim, the band otherwise disappeared down the rabbit hole once more, only to re-emerge now as they prepare to release their fifth studio album. Says guitarist Knut Magne Valle on the new material:
‘Arcturian’ contains elements from entire Arcturus’ history and as a result it is both harder and softer than ever before. We went back to real drums, real strings and ‘first take’ improvised guitar solos to give it an authenticity and life that not many records tend to have these days. We worked hard to mix the old Arcturus sound into the newer material and the result was: We obtained a more homogeneous, mystic Arcturus sound picture.
If this opening track is representative of the quality of the rest of the album, Arcturian might well be a highlight of 2015. Listen to it below, and let me know what you think in the comments.
Foundations of Burden 
Dense, ambitious, musically diverse, catchy as a bag of fishhooks, and starting out with a little taste of cybermetal. It’s like they found a collection of my favorite things in metal and tossed them in a blender. This is fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing this. To be honest I hadn’t heard Arcturus before. I have some catching up to do.
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Oh man, I envy the musical journey you have in front of you. My favourite is The Sham Mirrors, but you can’t go wrong with any of their albums. So glad you enjoyed it. I’ll make sure to put up a post when the album is released in May. Hoping the opening track is indicative of the quality of the remainder!
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