Hello, band singer Peter here!
I'd like to shed some light about what will be (lyric-wise) our upcoming album. Now I am sure it will be called "KURBADS"!

"Kurbads" is the name of legendary hero from Latvian fairytales of an old.
He was born magically from the white mare, grew up very fast and was unimaginably strong! In his tale he travels the world, fights various evil creatures, especially his sworn enemy Snake Witch, ventures into realm of the dead to save daughter of the king, finds the hard way out of there and finally fights in last epic battle against Snake Witch and her champion.

Tales about Kurbads are half fairytales and half legends. They were collected and recorded at the end of 19th century by some folk enthusiasts and are type of "told from mouth to mouth, from generation to generations". Mainly these stories are short or middle length and have many variations. There are several heroes, who were born from various beings and things. For example: son of wood, son of iron, son of blacksmith, son of ox, son of pea, son of wolf and most known - son of bear. From the tale about son of bear there was later written our national epos "The Bear Slayer" (in Latvian called "Lāčplēsis").

The main story for all of them however in common is very same with some variations. The thing for me there is that some parts, in my view, are coming from very old past, from times of the totemism, when some powerful beast (bear or white mare) appears as the first father/mother of some tribe or even nation! Unfortunately, as it happens with such things, these stories are changed all the way through the centuries, some things are forgotten and other things are imagined anew by the tellers themselves. But the very core of those tales still is the same and mainly it is a legend about Dragonslayer, which has almost every Indo-European nation - the man who fights against some mythic evil force and becomes a legend.

I believe that the tale about "KURBADS" is interesting enough as it discovers many things from the past of Latvian people - not historical facts of course, but things from daily life and way of thinking of people who lived in ancient times. Baltic cultural heritage is mostly unknown for the rest of the Europe (even as it is a part of it!) and world, so we want to uncover it a bit as best as we can and show that there, in Baltic (Latvian and Lithuanian) literature is as great legends and tales as those about Cuchulainn, Nibelungs, Kalevala, King Arthur and the knights of the round table and such!

More news about album release info will be posted, as they happens.

Skyforger will perform first gig in Sweden on 7th November 2009, in Stockholm!
Our old friends Månegarm will showcase their new album "Nattväsen".
Also on the bill are old touring allies of Viking metal fame Thyrfing.
Reserve your tickets already now to be a part of the heaviest release party of the year!

We are pleased to announce that after a longer hiatus, Skyforger is finally back in studio to record follow-up to the last full length "Thunderforge", which came out back in 2003. This is the first time band has decided to abandon "Phoenix" studio where all previous albums were shaped and now will try out different surroundings. A recording takes place in calm environments of personal studio "Lauska" of band's own member Kaspars Barbals who's supervising all the processes. As usually Skyforger will be producing the album themselves; there are planned ten brand-new compositions in total, but no album name or song titles are known by this stage. So far are done all of the drumming and bass guitar lines and right now Peter is working on his guitar riffing.

Band members say: "This is five years since the last album and definitely there blows some fresh wind in terms of creation of the new song structures & coming up with new ideas. In few words the new album could be described as a good mix of heavy metal and thrash metal, spicing it all up with a certain dose of Latvian folk music. But not to worry, fans will still recognize the usual quality and sound of the songs they have come to know and expect from Skyforger."

More news from studio will be posted here as they happen.