THE NIGHT KINGS
“WE WERE INSPIRED BY SOUNDTRACKS THAT WENT ALONG WITH BIG FANTASY MOVIES”
IHSAHN
EMPEROR
In The Nightside Eclipse
The internet seems to think came out on February 21, 1994, yet anyone who was there at the time will recall the agonising delays that pushed Emperor’s hotly anticipated debut LP back throughout that year. The record wasn’t unleashed until mid-December ’94 – 17 months after it was recorded, “under the seventh full moon anno 1993” (as specified in the liner notes) – at the end of a breathtakingly fertile year for the newly ascendant force of Norwegian black metal. Mayhem’s , Burzum’s , Darkthrone’s , debuts from Gorgoroth and Dimmu Borgir, and the first two albums by Enslaved and Satyricon all emerged to get its act together. After setting the underground on fire with the demo in 1992 and an eponymous EP in ’93, the still-teenaged Emperor – guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Ihsahn, guitarist Samoth, bassist Tchort and drummer Faust – had a lot of ground to make up, and a hell of a lot to live up to.
