''Black Waltz'' is the fourth studio album by Swedish
heavy metal band
Avatar
Avatar (, ; ), is a concept within Hinduism that in Sanskrit literally means "descent". It signifies the material appearance or incarnation of a powerful deity, goddess or spirit on Earth. The relative verb to "alight, to make one's appearanc ...
, released on 25 January 2012. (In the US, it was released on 14 February 2012.)
During the making of the "Black Waltz" music video, the band asked their makeup artist to come with something to make frontman Johannes Eckerström fit in with the characters, and she responded with the "Clown" face paint, which Eckerström is also seen wearing on the album cover. Eckerström has said, "... Something clicked... seeing that face, it awakened something that really wasn't there before; or was but was well hidden... Suddenly the music got its face." He now regularly wears the face paint in music videos and band photo shoots, as well as during live shows.
In a French book collecting artists' speech about the
Hellfest Open Air
Hellfest (), also called Hellfest Summer Open Air, is a rock festival focusing on heavy metal music, held annually in June in Clisson, France. Its high attendance makes it the French music festival with the largest turnover. It is also one o ...
festival, Eckerström declared that "Black Waltz" almost was the band's last album, frustrated that they couldn't find their own way. The singer says "we decided to do a last effort, some sort of statement, to tell the world we were here, that we existed. As we were not awaiting anything from our career, we decided, for the first time, to make the album that represented us. We learned to write for ourselves, without caring about the opinion of anyone else. And this formula worked!"
The album reached position 25 on the album list in Avatar's native Sweden.
Veckolista Album – Vecka 5, 3 februari 2012
Retrieved 9 May 2013
Track listing
Personnel
Avatar
*Johannes Eckerström
Avatar is a Swedish heavy metal band, formed in Gothenburg in 2001. The band has released eight studio albums, the most recent being ''Hunter Gatherer'' in 2020. The band has had some success on US rock radio, notably with their song " New Land" ...
– lead vocals
*Jonas "Kungen" Jarlsby – guitar
*Tim Öhrström – guitar, backing vocals
*Henrik Sandelin – bass, backing vocals
*John Alfredsson – drums
Charts
References
2012 albums
Avatar (Swedish band) albums
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