It’s been over two years since the last time we heard from Swedish trio Pike, who even then were reporting a follow-up to their well-received 2012 debut, To Cross the Great Divide. As of 2017, that will have been released half a decade ago, and as Pike prepare to enter into their ninth year of existence, they do so with the promise of moving forward from their first outing and into a second one. Titled Esox Lucifer and set to be recorded at the increasingly-ubiquitous-as-regards-Swedish-heavy Studio Underjord, the sophomore Pike LP will begin tracking in March, and presumably released at some time before the end of next year through a yet-undetermined label.

Pike now have a couple years under their collective belt working with guitarist Ludwig Lovén, and if the sporadic practice videos they’ve posted on the social medias are anything to go by, they’ve been refining the material for Esox Lucifer for a while, so I’d expect it to be fairly hammered out by the time they actually get to the recording process. Whether that will speed things along or not will have to remain to be seen.

Here’s what they had to say about it:

PIKE: RECORDING NEW ALBUM

Finally, we can reveal some big and exciting news.

On March 17th 2017, roughly five years after the release of the critically acclaimed debut album “To Cross The Great Divide”, we will enter Studio Underjord together with producer extraordinaire Joona Hassinen (Vanhelgd, Ocean Chief, Tombstones etc) to record the long overdue follow-up. We can divulge that the album will be called “Esox Lucifer”, it will contain six tracks and it will melt your face like nothing ever has.

That is all the info we can share with you at this time. Keep watching the usual spaces for news.

Death, doom & destruction,
Pike

Pike is:
Ludvig Lovén: guitar
Alvin Risberg: drums
Alex Risberg: bass & vocals

https://www.facebook.com/PikeSweden/
http://pike.bandcamp.com/
http://instagram.com/pikemusic
http://pikesweden.bigcartel.com/

Pike, To Cross the Great Divide (2012)

The 2012 outing from Swedish trio, Pike, To Cross the Great Divide, was a varied and atmospheric work of post-metal, successfully avoiding the we’re-gonna-lie-about-what-we-do-in-order-to-trick-you-into-thinking-it’s-not-a-boring-Isis-ripoff methodology of countrymen Cult of Luna by virtue of working in faster tempo shifts and being generally unpretentious about a metallized influence across the album’s five mostly-extended tracks. Call it a High on Fire influence on the grammatically intriguing opener “Rituale Romanum” (is that a ritual of the Romans or to them?) if you want — the band is called Pike, for crying out loud — but there turned out to be much more to the band than one side or the other, and much to the album’s benefit.

They released To Cross the Great Divide as a gatefold digipak CD, nodding at vinyl without taking on the debatably needless expense of actually putting out the record on that format, and while they, like all post-metallers, had their requisite “Stones from the Sky” moment in the aforementioned opening cut, they at least used it as a fleshing out point for further expansion of their sound. Brothers Alex and Alvin Risberg recently welcomed new guitarist Ludwig Lovén to the fold and sent along the following announcement, which also hints at new material in progress:

We would like to officially welcome Ludvig Lovén as our new guitarist!

We are very excited about the future of Pike and where we are heading with this new line-up.

We are currently in the process of rehearsing some of our old material, as well as writing new stuff that will undoubtedly rip your face off.

We have also extended our reach to include the social media platform Instagram. So if you’re into that type of thing, follow us at @pikemusic

Pike:
Ludvig Lovén – Guitar
Alex Risberg – Bass/Vocals
Alvin Risberg – Drums

https://www.facebook.com/PikeSweden
http://pike.bandcamp.com/
http://instagram.com/pikemusic
http://pikesweden.bigcartel.com/

Pike, To Cross the Great Divide (2012)