Metal Anarchy

Enslaved have partnered with the Storm Weather Shanty Choir for covers of two shanty tracks, “Fire Marengo” and “Anna Lovinda.” You can check those out below. “Fire Marengo” is a traditional shanty and “Anna Lovinda” is a piece written by the late Erik Bye.

Enslaved commented:

“Enslaved was formed on the western edge of Norway, where mountains fall into the sea and history is carried by wind and tide. Bergen is not simply a coastal city; it is a threshold — between land and ocean, between myth and lived experience. The sea is not scenery here. It is memory, labour, departure and return.

Among the most powerful living symbols of this heritage is Statsraad Lehmkuhl, the great Bergen tall ship that still sails the world’s oceans. Around this vessel lives and breathes the shanty tradition — songs born of rhythm, rope, salt, and collective effort. From this environment emerged Storm Weather Shanty Choir.

Our connection to the ship began in 2014, when the Tall Ships Races concluded in Bergen. We were invited to compose and perform a commissioned piece on the deck of Statsraad Lehmkuhl. Metal echoed across the harbor that evening — a meeting of ancient wind-powered technology and modern amplified ritual. It felt less like contrast and more like continuity.

Since then, a friendship has grown — particularly with Haakon Vatle, director of the ship’s foundation and one of Norway’s most devoted custodians of the shanty tradition. He often remarks that sailors were the first metalheads — people who faced elemental forces daily and answered them with song. There is truth in that. Shanties were not entertainment; they were functional incantations — rhythm as survival.

In November 2025, during the choir’s 20th anniversary concert in Bergen, we joined forces on the traditional ‘Fire Marengo’ and the Norwegian shanty ‘Anna Lovinda’, written by the late sailor and cultural figure Erik Bye. The collaboration felt less like fusion and more like recognition — two expressions of the same coastal inheritance meeting at the center.

After the performance, it was clear that this convergence should not remain ephemeral. We met again in early 2026 to record the material — not as novelty, but as continuation. Because at the centre — at mið — we find not isolation, but shared origin. Wind, rhythm, voice. The same pulse that once moved sails now moves amplifiers. The same call-and-response that coordinated labour now shapes modern ritual.

The sea remembers. And so do we.”