GRA (GRÁ)
Helfard (1st press)

Guitarist and singer Heljarmadr (Dark Funeral) expressed his thoughts: “Flame Of Hephaestus” is the first single from our new album Lycaon. We feel that it is a good representative for the album and it carries an intensity that kinda connects it with our last album Väsen. It serves as a natural bridge, if you will.

Flame Of Hephaestus brings us back to our early days, when we were including more influences from Greek mythology, alongside the ancient Scandinvian cult. It is therefore also quite suitable that Lycaon was mixed and mastered in Greece. Mixed by Terry Nikas and mastered by George Nerantzis”.

The Flame Of Hephaestus artwork was created by Italian artist Roberto Toderico, while the B-side, ”Stella Polaris”, is a single exclusive instrumental track, written by guitarist Maugrim. This is his first contribution for Grá as a composer.

Since their inception in 2010, Grá has relentlessly worked to shape their music to be both a perfect example of Swedish black metal and a very personal interpretation of its classic sound. Their new studio album will mark the first cooperation between the band from Stockholm and Avantgarde Music, and we thought best to leave frontman Heljarmadr complete freedom to introduce the opus.

Lycaon is our fourth full length album and ever since we started Grá in 2010, we have been striving for constant evolution, to challenge ourselves as musicians and composers with every release.

Where our last album Väsen was extremely intricate and bombastic, with an "all in" approach to keyboards, orchestral parts, acoustic guitars and choir arrangements, Lycaon is heading in the opposite direction. It has fewer layers and with that, every layer needs to be meticulously measured and well thought out to carry the right atmosphere forward.