Immortal claim former frontman Abbath stole tracks for solo release

Immortal
Immortal

Immortal say that former frontman Abbath took some of their tracks and used them on his solo album.

Abbath, aka Olve Eikemo, released his self-titled solo album earlier this year after he was sacked by guitarist Harald ‘Demonaz’ Navdal and drummer Reidar ‘Horgh’ Horghagen in 2014.

The acrimonious split seemed to come to a head when the singer saw his legal bid to secure rights to the Immortal name fail.

But Abbath’s former bandmates now point to some of the tracks on his album and claim foul play was involved.

Immortal say in a statement: “From 2010 until 2014, Immortal wrote all the songs for the successor to All Shall Fall but when ex-member Abbath left the band, he changed the lyrics, song titles and recorded these songs for his so called ‘solo album.’

“We had to focus on making a new album nearly from scratch, which is the main reason why things have taken this much time.”

Immortal report writing sessions for the as-yet-untitled record are now complete, and add: “This will be our darkest and coldest album in a long time – with massive majestic riffs, grim frostbitten vocals and tales from our mighty realm. Fast and furious tracks, epic tracks and longer playtime than any of our previous albums.

“The last year we have completed all the new songs and look forward to record our most passionate album in a long time. The songwriting process has been awesome and we are soon ready to start the recordings.”

They continue: “In a time when true and origin Black Metal is nearly dead, the band is in ultimate spirit. After the last year’s incidents, it was time to go back to the roots to what this band is really about musically, and also to take the integrity of the band back to where it belongs.”

Immortal will play this year’s Metal Invasion festival in Straubing, Germany, which runs from October 18-19.

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Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.