Aktaion Reveal New Single ‘Cancer’ Details
Halmstad, Sweden based metallers Aktaion have revealed details for a brand new single entitled ‘Cancer’. Set for release 17th February 2017, this single shows a band carving their name even deeper into the stones of melodic death metal and taking their own variation of the genre one step further. The song is the result of a collaboration with Studio Haga where Aktaion recorded the single and sees guest appearances from Joey Concepcion and John Anderberg, whom also featured on the band’s second album, The Parade of Nature.
The band comments, “With the release of ‘Cancer’ we are setting a new standard and starting the new, more polished era of Aktaion. We are moving into more focused territory and will continue even further in the footsteps of ‘Cancer’ with new material in the later parts of 2017.”
Guitarist Francis Larsson adds, “The backbone of the music for ‘Cancer’ came together surprisingly quickly, with most of the music written during one late evening. I struggled with finding the right lyric inspiration and took several different approaches until I stumbled upon an archive of poems written during and around the First World War. One in particularly caught my attention; ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ by Wilfred Owen. It fit perfectly with what I felt the song needed and the emotion behind writing the instrumentals for the song. A lot of inspiration and even direct citations in the lyrics for ‘Cancer’ comes from this poem. I searched for a long time for the ‘soul’ of this song and found it in the words of Wilfred Owen and of the lives lost whom he wrote his beautiful poems about. I think the theme of losing one’s comrades in battle and the terrors of war in general, and especially from chemical warfare as in this case, made up a perfect theme for the song.”
Aktaion sprung to life in 2015 with the release of their debut album Throne, the result of long time collaborations between the members going back to 2010. The positive reception which came from reviewers and new fans led to the initiative to take Aktaion beyond its hold up in Halmstad, Sweden. Quite eager to release new material, Aktaion went into writing mode right away. Plans to record a shorter EP in time grew into a full-length of eleven songs under the title The Parade of Nature!
After recording the second album Aktaion went out to tour the northern parts of Europe. In April, Aktaion traveled south and visited east Europe and the Balkans as part of the ‘Blood Mantra Balkan Tour 2016’ with Krysthla, Thy Disease, Hate and the legendary Decapitated. During the two week tour Aktaion visited and played a total of 13 cities in 9 countries, taking their own variation of Swedish melodic death metal with them. After the release of The Parade of Nature the band focused on writing new material and with the release of the new single ‘Cancer’ on the horizon, Aktaion are moving in a new and unexplored direction.
