Panopticon to Release a Folk Album and a Black Metal Album This August

Hold onto your butts, ladies and gentlemen. One of the more interesting and exciting acts in modern black metal is about to hit the scene with a one-two punch, as Panopticon announced that we’ll all get not one, but two albums on August 15. But the surprise doesn’t stop there, because one of those albums will be black metal and the other will be folk.

Now, that shouldn’t be much of a surprise for anyone that’s been following Panopticon over the years. The band’s mastermind Austin Lunn has offered up both styles of Panopticon in the past, so it’s not much of a stretch to suggest we would get full albums featuring both sides of the project in full.

For the fans of Panopticon’s more trve and kvlt side of things, you can get hyped for Songs Of Hiraeth, which is a collection of songs that were written during the On The Subject Of Mortality time period. As for those that want to get a little adventurous with their listening, the folk album Laurentian Blue is being described as a companion piece for …And Again Into the Light. And while that record will feature more traditional folk instrumentation, don’t worry, it will be dark as hell.

In conjunction with today’s announcement, Panopticon put out singles for both records: “The White Mountain View” from Songs Of Hiraeth and “This mortal Coil is Rusted” off of Laurentian Blue. You can check out both singles below.

Laurentian Blue and Songs Of Hiraeth will both be released on August 15. If you’re in the U.S., you can preorder your copy from here, while non-U.S. fans can get their preorders in order over on the Nordvis website.