Arcturus

Honored sonic surrealists Arcturus lay before you their latest work, The Sham Mirrors. In a time when the terms "avant-garde" and "progressive" are thrown around too loosely in the metal lexicon, The Sham Mirrors arrives to defy such easy tags. It explodes like a supernova throughout its 43-minute duration.

Arcturus was founded in Norway by keyboardist Steinar Sverd Johnsen (a.k.a. Sverd) and drummer Jan Axel Von Blomberg (a.k.a. Hellhammer) over 10 years ago. The first release was the My Angel 7", released in 1991. They then added Garm on vocals and guitarist Carl August Tidemann (a.k.a. August), and recorded the debut full-length, Aspera Hiems Symfonia. With this album the Arcturus sound was balanced between primal extremity and grand symphonic vision.

If Aspera Hiems Symfonia was the definition of Arcturus’ sound, 1997’s La Masquerade Infernale burned it down and totally rebuilt it. The album marked the exit of August and the entrance of current guitarist Knut M. Valle. An eccentric piece of sonic theatre, La Masquerade Infernale earned worldwide praise for its truly avant-garde approach. So it was with surprise and not a little controversy that the band appeared as Arcturus And The Deception Circus for their 1999 release, Disguised Masters. Other than new song "Deception Genesis," the album mostly revisited songs from La Masquerade Infernale.

And in 2002 The Sham Mirrors is released in the USA through The End Records. The new album remains metal at its core while dragging the genre through endless tunnels of light, color and sound that it has never before seen. As described by their charismatic frontman, Trickster G.: "This is classically-engendered synthesized rock/metal to vaudeville/cabaret-tinged progressive rock conceptuals on to a myriad of deformations into jazz, trip-hop, synthpop, emperimental/AI electronics, jungle, etc. Arcturus run the gamut as gracefully as acclaimed purists in the respective fields."

Trickster G. Rex: voice
Steinar Sverd Johnsen: keys
Hellhammer: drums
Knut M. Valle: high guitar
Dag F. Gravem: low guitar
(guest starring: Ihsahn [Emperor]; Mathias Eick)