Enslaved Announce Deluxe Edition Of Heimdal For March 2024 Release, Share Bonus Track “Gangandi”

One year ago. Norway’s trailblazing cosmic voyagers, Enslaved, released their latest avant-garde creation titled Heimdal. To commemorate the studio album’s first year of existence, the band are proud to announce the Heimdal (Deluxe) digital album, which is set to be released on March 1 by Nuclear Blast Records.

Heimdal (Deluxe) will include the studio album in full, as well as bonus track “Gangandi,” alternative versions of two album tracks “Congelia” and “Forest Dweller,” which both feature sublime performances from renowned cellist Jo Quail along with the entirety of ‘The Otherworldly Big Band Experience,” which is Enslaved‘s 2022 streaming event featuring fellow psychedelic Norwegian prog band Shaman Elephant.

In light of news about the upcoming album deluxe, the band have released their deeply mesmerizing track ,”Gangandi,” as a preview to the deluxe digital album, which is accompanied by a visualizer. As a whole, the music is fantastic because the vein jolting instrumentation smacks the atmosphere with head banging noise while the vocal performance shakes the background with sheer vocal power.

While speaking about the song, vocalist/bassist Grutle Kjellson says: “Gangandi was the last song we made before the recording sessions for Heimdal took place. I remember Ivar driving down to my place from Bergen on a Friday night to play a demo for a new song for me, and I went like, Daaaaamn, this is something else! I absolutely loved it, but at the same time, I sensed that it was a little bit to the left of the rest of the material. When I started to figure out what to sing over it, I ended up writing a poem in cross rhyme in archaic western Norwegian, which even separated the whole effort even further away from the rest of the material.

The musician adds: “So, ultimately, we ended up not including it on the album, other than as a bonus track on the most “exclusive” and limited vinyl versions. That said, that doesn’t mean that we don’t enjoy the song! Quite the contrary! We love this odd little hybrid of folk rock, early Mayhem, and King Crimson! It just ended up being the weird cousin of the rest of the songs. Kind of like Enslaved itself as a matter of fact.”

Photo Credit: Raymond Flotat