Belgium's HERZOG will release Mugwort, their second and final album, on October 26 through Amor Fati Productions on CD and vinyl LP. The label has shared the first track, "Trauma", on its official YouTube channel.
Mugwort is the last work of HERZOG's Asgeir Amort. He began writing it in 2024, when, in the words of the announcement, it was still "a state of pure potential". In 2025 a persistent pain led to the discovery of an aggressive kidney cancer that had destroyed a vertebra. Several surgeries followed in an attempt to keep his mobility, but they failed; Amort was left paralyzed from the chest down, with months rather than years ahead of him. Finishing the album became his focus for the time he had left.
The record tells the story of that final year: the shock, the pain and the struggle, but above all, according to his family, the love and acceptance he reached in the face of the inevitable. The statement remembers him as "joyful, witty, luminous" and says he left this world "wrapped in love, courage, and grace".
The album is split in two. In the first part, listeners hear Amort's own voice. The second part was written after the cancer had taken his diaphragm, and it is carried by his wife, Isa Myling, who delivers his words as "a lament, a continuation, a final act of love".
Mugwort follows HERZOG's debut album Furnace, also released through Amor Fati.
Tracklist:
- Region of the Nest
- Dawn of the Prosper
- Trauma
- Chaosphonia
- Saudade
- Post-Truth
Follow HERZOG: Facebook · Amor Fati Productions · Bandcamp