Somewhere Far Beyond Revisited

Somewhere Far Beyond Revisited came out on Nuclear Blast on 2 August 2024 (the jewel-case CD is NBR 72682), the same day the band played Wacken Open Air. It is a complete re-recording of their fourth album from 1992, and the band presents it not as a new studio album but as a special release revisiting that record. Hansi Kürsch's liner notes say a re-recording was not the original idea: the band was rehearsing for shows celebrating the album's thirtieth anniversary when the pandemic hit and nobody could be sure those shows would happen. It was recorded at Twilight Hall Studios between February 2022 and January 2023, with the basic tracks played in a live setting, produced by the band with Charlie Bauerfeind and mixed by Joost van den Broek. The backing vocals and bagpipes that Kalle Trapp recorded at Karo Studios in 1992 were kept. The bass is played as a guest by Johan van Stratum from the Netherlands, the band's bassist since 2021. It carries the ten songs of the 1992 album, without the three bonus tracks of that album's CD, and Andreas Marschall, who painted the 1992 sleeve, is credited with the artwork. "The Quest for Tanelorn" came out first as a single on 7 June 2024, the day the album was announced, and the band went on to post lyric videos and a visualizer for the other songs. The limited three-disc digipak adds a live CD and a Blu-ray from the 2022 anniversary shows. The running order here is the original's as printed.