OLD RUINS have released "Tyrael's Despair", the second single from their upcoming album "Mount Arreat", along with an official music video. The song arrived on August 21; the album follows on September 18 via Sick Taste Records.
The German band, formed in Gelsenkirchen in 2019, play melodic black metal with a strong post-black streak, and "Mount Arreat" is a full concept record built on "Diablo II: Lord Of Destruction". The track titles read like a walkthrough of the expansion — "Gates Of Harrogath", "Nihlathak", "Lord Of Destruction", the title track named for the mountain itself — and the new single takes on its ending.
"The song is our tribute to one of the most dramatic video game endings of all time," the band say. "Because, in a way, you've won, yet at the same time you feel as though you've lost. That sense of despair and the anger at the hopelessness of the situation… all of that is captured in this song."
It is a fitting subject for the genre. The archangel Tyrael destroys the Worldstone to stop Baal's corruption from spreading, and in doing so wrecks the thing he was sworn to protect — a victory that reads as a catastrophe. At 6:16, the closing track is the longest thing on the album bar "Uileloscadh Mor", and the video is worth six minutes of anyone's evening.
The album was preceded in July by first single "Once There Was Light", which also arrived with a video. Sick Taste Records are pressing "Mount Arreat" as a 300-copy CD digipak and across five 180g vinyl variants, each limited to 113 copies and each named after something out of the game: Health (transparent red/black marbled), Mana (transparent blue), Nihlathak (transparent green/black marbled), Tyrael (white/gold marbled) and Baal (yellow/red splatter). A 100-copy box set is also up for pre-order.
OLD RUINS — "Mount Arreat" track listing:
- Once There Was Light (5:48)
- Gates Of Harrogath (4:52)
- Call To Arms (5:02)
- Uileloscadh Mor (7:27)
- Nihlathak (5:15)
- Mount Arreat (6:25)
- Lord Of Destruction (5:37)
- Tyrael's Despair (6:16)
OLD RUINS are Kraje on vocals and guitar, Ersin Kara on guitar, Oliver Krajewski on bass and Mike Gelnar on drums.
Stream "Tyrael's Despair": Spotify Watch the video: YouTube Pre-order "Mount Arreat": Sick Taste Records