EMPATH Sets Nov. 13 Release for Self-Titled Debut Album
Photo Credit: Martin Goltermann
Copenhagen heavy-rock band EMPATH will release its self-titled debut album Nov. 13 through Indisciplinarian, introducing a new project built around former RISING collaborators Morten Grønnegaard and Jacob Krogholt.
The eight-song Empath brings together Grønnegaard, also of QAISOR, on vocals and Krogholt of ANTI RITUAL on guitar. The album lineup is completed by bassist KB Larsen, whose credits include VOLBEAT and ANTI RITUAL, and drummer Jeppe Munk Aakeson of KNYTNÆVE and IOTA.
Rather than returning directly to the musicians’ previous metal work, EMPATH draws heavily from the progressive, psychedelic and heavy rock of the 1970s and ’80s. The band combines that foundation with a contemporary production approach and synthesizers inspired by vintage science-fiction soundtracks.
Across approximately 38 minutes, the album moves between melodic hard rock, progressive arrangements and heavier metal passages while maintaining an atmospheric thread throughout.
The record’s lyrical direction reaches beyond traditional heavy-rock themes. Grønnegaard uses science fiction, romantic-era literature and social observation to examine ambition, isolation, inequality, environmental collapse and conflict.
Writers including Arthur C. Clarke, William Blake and Thomas De Quincey served as reference points for ideas that originally dealt with imagined futures and altered states but increasingly resemble contemporary anxieties.
That intersection between old speculative fiction and modern instability is central to Empath. The album looks at humanity’s aspirations alongside the consequences of pursuing them within a society shaped by competition, consumption and accelerating technological and environmental change.
Musically, the record carries traces of classic bands including RAINBOW, IRON MAIDEN, KING DIAMOND, RUSH, JUDAS PRIEST and DIO-era BLACK SABBATH while filtering those influences through a distinctly modern Scandinavian production.
KB Larsen produced the album with EMPATH. Brad Boatright mastered the record at Audiosiege, whose credits include OBITUARY, DEADGUY and THE ARMED. Grønnegaard created the cover artwork.
Empath Track Listing
- “New Dawn”
- “Lyca’s Lost”
- “Sisters Of Sorrow”
- “Deceiver”
- “Childhood’s End”
- “Solace”
- “The Tower”
- “Only The Dead”
EMPATH will make its live debut Dec. 11 at A Colossal Kind Of X-mas at Hotel Cecil in Copenhagen, appearing alongside a lineup of Danish heavy-music acts.
The album will be available digitally and in two limited vinyl editions: 100 copies on transparent blue vinyl and 100 on black vinyl.
Empath arrives Nov. 13 through Indisciplinarian.