AMON AMARTH vocalist Johan Hegg says releasing new music brings both excitement and nervousness, because the band cannot know whether listeners will respond to the songs as strongly as they do. He emphasised that the group writes music for itself, while accepting that musical preferences are subjective and not everyone will like every track.

Hegg rejected the idea that AMON AMARTH routinely produces large amounts of unused material, explaining that the band generally writes only songs it expects to include on an album. For “The Allfather Awakens”, due on 2 October, they recorded 11 songs but set one aside because it did not meet their expectations; the album is the band’s 13th, produced by Jacob Hansen and inspired by historically themed tales involving conflict and sacrifice.