Ihsahn discusses why making a new Emperor album wouldn't be a good idea: "It doesn't really happen because you can't compete with nostalgia" - Allied Forces

Ihsahn, one of the most prolific artists in black metal, was asked in a recent interview with Sam Acevedo from El Planeta del Rock if he had ever considered recording a new album with Emperor, to which the artist replied: “I think it would be easy-ish to make something that sounds like early Emperor, but who would want a black metal album made to make money off some kind of conceptual idea for some kind of demand in the market?“.

“That goes against everything that the music is about, in some sense. And if the other way would — I mean, we ended up in a place where I wrote more and more of the music, and with the last Emperor album, I did everything. And then, if we followed that trajectory, it’s very close to how I make my music today [as a solo artist]. And I don’t think that’s what people mean“, adds Ihsahn in the aforementioned interview. “So unless planets align in the ways that me and Samoth [Emperor guitarist] just really connect over a common idea that we really want to make, I really don’t see that happening. And also, then again, name me one band who broke up and then did a reunion record where people were, like, ‘Fuck. This is amazing. This is even better than the old stuff.’ It doesn’t really happen because it’s impossible because you can’t compete with nostalgia“.

The Norwegian musician later added that the risks of recording a new album with Emperor could end up ruining and destroying everything Emperor has achieved throughout their career: “It’s a risk because I would say that the culture and the atmosphere in the band and the traveling crew that we have with Emperor is probably better than it’s been ever. And we have such a great time doing what we do. We love playing the old songs. It’s not like we go there, ‘Ah, these old songs.’ It’s not maybe always that fun to rehearse ‘I Am The Black Wizards’, but performing ‘I Am The Black Wizards’ live is never boring. And we really make sure we enjoy it and really put ourselves out there a hundred percent“.

“I don’t really see any reason to kind of tilt and risk destroying that for what could possibly be reasons that are not compatible with the uncompromising nature of what Emperor was, and hopefully the tradition that uncompromising attitude probably was what got us here in the first place“, Ihsahn concluded.

Below you can see the interview with Sam Acevedo:

Emperor‘s latest album is Prometheus – The Discipline Of Fire & Demise in which Ihsahn is also the absolute writer of all the material and was released in 2001 via Candlelight and Nuclear Blast. Emperor broke up shortly after releasing Prometheus… and both Ihsahn and Samoth have continued their musical trajectories, meeting occasionally to play live, with no interest in recording anything new under the Emperor name.

Samoth, for his part, has been part of bands such as Scum or Zyklon while Ihsahn embarked on his solo work after debuting in 2006 with The Adversary. Ihsahn plans to release his self-titled eighth studio album on February 16 through Candlelight Records, having released three previews of this new album to date: Pilgrimage To Oblivion, Twice Born and The Distance Between Us.

Ihsahn’s new album coming out in February:

Ihsahn‘s new self-titled album is made up of eleven studio songs whose total duration will be 48 minutes. The album was mixed by Jens Bogren (Amorphis, Enslaved, Katatonia) and mixed by Tony Lindgren (Audrey Horne, Cryptosis, Elvenking), and is also produced by Ihsahn himself. The cover is the work of artist Ritxi Ostáriz who has been in charge of all of Ihsahn‘s artworks since his second album angL (2008, Mnemosyne Productions).