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Speaking on his newest release, Sondre Lerche gives the following statement, “This is without a doubt the biggest, boldest, most complex thing I’ve ever done, At the same time, it was also the easiest, most natural, and most liberating. As an artist, it’s the kind of project you always dream about.”

Since its release, the album has attracted multiple rave reviews. International network American Songwriter gave the album four stars and sang its praises in their review, “An impressive accomplishment, Avatars of Love probes the depths of desire to extraordinary effect.” NPR’s New Music Friday Podcast named the release one of the best albums of the week, Cyrena Touros gave the following review, “A journey start to finish… I feel like I could spend six months just listening to this one album and I could find so much to mine and explore.”

Also released on 1st April 2022 was the official music video of the album’s closing track “Alone In The Night”. The beautifully simple music video shows Sondre Lerche working and performing alongside the track’s featured artist Aurora. The press release provides a statement from Lerche discussing the collaboration, “‘Alone In The Night’ was the first recording I did for the Avatars of Love album. It put everything in motion, and surprised me greatly. I heard AURORA’s voice singing it in my mind one day when I was out running in the sun. So I asked her if she’d sing it with me. It felt extra special, because I had just returned home to Bergen after 15 years of living in the US. And she was one of the first to greet me there.”

The 39-year-old musician continues to discuss the track’s meaning, “It’s a song about what happens to our bodies and souls when we fall in love, and then again through the passage of time, when we age and die. It’s ultimately about our memories and dementia. How frail we really are, and how heartless the process of aging can be to lovers.”

Lerche has also released a ten-minute music video for the album’s title track, the visual masterpiece for “Avatars of Love” attracted much attention for its artistic appeal and also garnered great feedback from Flood Magazine and Stereogum. The track was also named one of the best songs of the week by BrooklynVegan and Under the Radar.

The multi-talented singer is currently heading a new art exhibition with Norwegian artist Nikolai Torgersen. The artists’ creative partnership can also be seen in the visuals for Avatars of Love which were drawn by Torgersen. The duo’s exhibit is being held at Kulturhuset I Bergen located in Norway and will run until 24th April 2022. The exhibit premiered on 31st March 2022 and features over forty pieces taken from and inspired by Lerche’s new album, all proceeds accumulated from the auctioned pieces will be donated to those in poverty and children affected by substance abuse.

Click here to stream/download/buy Avatars Of Love.

Avatars Of Love Tracklist

LP1

1) Guarantee That I’d Be Loved
2) Dead of the Night
3) Will We Ever Comprehend (feat. Rodrigo Alarcon, Ana Müller
4) Cut
5) Turns Out I’m Sentimental After All
6) What Makes Me Tick
7) My Love Still Waits

LP2

8) Avatars of Love
9) Summer In Reverse (feat. CHAI)
10) Now She Sleeps Beside Me
11) Special Needs (feat. Felicia Douglass)
12) The Other Side of Ecstasy
13) Magnitude of Love (feat. Mary Lattimore)
14) Alone in the Night (feat. AURORA)

The band recorded the album in Paris with longstanding producer Kevin Shirley and was co-produced by Steve Harris. Titled ‘Senjutsu’ roughly translated from the Japanese for “tactics and strategy,” the record will be packaged in a similar style to their previous album ‘The Book Of Souls’, as a double CD/Triple vinyl album (pictured below).

This latest project will follow on from their new single ‘The Writing On The Wall’ which was released on Thursday, July 15 with a music video that received much acclaim for its animated style.

The band’s co-producer Steve Harris stated that “The setup there is perfect for our needs; the building used to be a cinema and has a really high ceiling so there’s a great acoustic sound. We recorded this album in the same way we did The Book of Souls in that we’d write a song, rehearse it, and then put it down together straight away while it was all fresh in our minds.”

He then went on to say “There are some very complex songs on this album which took a lot of hard work to get them exactly as we wanted them to sound, so the process was at times very challenging, but Kevin is great at capturing the essence of the band and I think it was worth the effort! I’m very proud of the result and can’t wait for fans to hear it.”

Iron maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson then also added “We’re all really excited about this album. We recorded it back in early 2019 during a break in the Legacy tour so we could maximize our touring yet still have a long set up period before release to prepare great album art and something special as a video. Of course, the pandemic delayed things more — so much for the best-laid plans — or should that be ‘strategies’!?  The songs are very varied, and some of them are quite long. There are also one or two songs which sound pretty different to our usual style, and I think Maiden fans will be surprised —  in a good way, I hope!”

The record will be released on a multitude of formats from a standard 2CD Digipak or Special Edition Coloured Vinyl to a Super Deluxe Boxset. All these formats will be available to pre-order from tomorrow Wednesday, July 21.

Iron Maiden, ‘Senjutsu’ Tracklist

1. Senjutsu
2. Stratego
3. The Writing on the Wall
4. Lost in a Lost World
5. Days of Future Past
6. The Time Machine
7. Darkest Hour
8. Death of the Celts
9. The Parchment
10. Hell on Earth