Sweden's ARCKANUM, one of the spearheads of traditional black metal, is back with a vengeance. Leader Shamaatae's seventh album is entitled "Fenris Kindir" and will hit stores on May 10 (May 14 in North America). The cover artwork and tracklisting will be unveiled soon.

ARCKANUM was founded in 1992 by Shamaatae, who decided to continue solo after first demo, "Demo-93". The Swede had previously played drums in CONQUEST/GROTESQUE (which were to become AT THE GATES) and founded the death metal band ABSORPTION with his brother Sataros, before renaming it DISENTERMENT.

ARCKANUM embodies Shamaatae's return to black metal taking inspiration from Pan, anti-cosmic Satanism, Old Norse tradition, runic witchcraft and chaos-Gnosticism. Musically, the Swede draws inspiration from black and death metal with strong influences from the '80s, with a clear penchant for a dirty and thrashing sound.

ARCKANUM's first albums — "Fran Marder" (1995), "Kostogher" (1997) and "Kampen" (1998) — as well as a host of EPs gained Shamaatae a large following in the underground.