Enslaved will release their seventeenth studio album, Mið, on October 30 through Nuclear Blast Records. The announcement arrives with “Solar Will,” a first clear view of a record whose central idea is contained in its title: the Old Norse word for “centre” or “middle.”
For a band whose history has repeatedly turned transition into momentum, that choice feels deliberate. Mið is being presented as both a point of balance and a new beginning, not as a return to a fixed version of Enslaved’s past.
“Solar Will” makes the concept physical
The first single approaches the sun as both a source of life and a destructive force. That tension gives “Solar Will” its shape: weighty riffs and large drum patterns are set against melodic detail, allowing celebration and threat to occupy the same space.
Guitarist Ivar Bjørnson describes the song through the scale of solar myth, while vocalist and bassist Grutle Kjellson points to unresolved conflicts in nature, mythology and the human mind. The track does not aim for a neat conclusion. Its pull comes from the way opposing forces remain active around the same centre.
A title about relation, not stillness
The “middle” suggested by Mið is not a neutral stopping point. In the band’s description, it is where past and present, instinct and structure, individual ideas and group decisions meet. That makes the album title a working method as much as a theme.
Enslaved have often used Norse history and sacred traditions as material without treating them like museum pieces. The new record continues that approach, asking how older symbols can illuminate the present while remaining open to reinterpretation.
Eight tracks, one continuous argument
The album runs across eight tracks: “Non-Being,” “I Am Ice,” “Solar Will,” “Mountain,” “Spirit Helper,” “Parting,” “Tales of Trees” and “I Miðju.” Guest appearances include Johan Sara Jr on “I Am Ice” and Kevin Kicking Woman on “Spirit Helper.”
Those titles suggest a movement between absence, landscape, spirit and departure. Rather than spelling out a linear story, they establish coordinates around the album’s central question: how can apparently contradictory states remain in dialogue?
Thirty-five years without a fixed border
Enslaved formed in 1991, and their career has stretched from the early Norwegian black-metal scene into an increasingly expansive progressive language. That history matters here because Mið is not described as a break with what came before. It grows from the same willingness to challenge the band’s own habits.
The new album follows the thematically connected Utgard and Heimdal, but the official announcement emphasizes an unexpected path beyond those rites of passage. “Solar Will” suggests that the next phase may be defined less by a destination than by the relationships holding the music together.
Mið arrives on October 30. “Solar Will” is available now with a video created by Bergen-based Kolibri Media. Official album details, formats and the complete track list are available from Nuclear Blast Records.
