Color: Fade to Black. Rough Trade Exclusive. With Signed Postcard. 180 Gram Vinyl. Limited to 300 copies. Signed. UPC: 732388013289 Latest masterpiece from avant metal band Avatar. They hit you over the head with so much frenetic insanity, but all the while keeping it melodic like a great Iron Maiden album. As a strange light in the sky beckons you towards something forbidden, far away, you see a robed, horned ferryman, rowing across a restless sea at the end of days. Back home a strange sound rolls through your house. It comes from the basement. The news talks about a beautiful corpse, lauded for her magnificent demise on a dance floor by men who could have fixed her. You catch the last broadcast from an outpost succumbing to flames on a distant moon. Its inhabitants try to outrun their own madness. Outside there is a place you're not allowed to go, no matter how intoxicating the gaze of the eyes among the trees. You lay awake at night, yet you dream thousand dreams more real than any waking moment. Strange times call for a strange band. With a life long commitment to the misfit arts, Avatar delves deep into the collective subconscious. They travel beyond the realms of flesh and far past the spiritual barriers broken in past works. No matter how many times they were warned, they keep treading deeper into the woods. There is sense to be made out of the senseless. They lay a soft gaze upon terrifying, almost shapeless inner landscapes, and they have a damn good time doing it. Don't go in the forest is a warning said by others, heeded as a challenge for a certain kind of freak who just can't fight the urge to seek truth and feel alive. It is a collection of strange tunes emerging from a circus tent in a meadow in a faraway valley. You can only ever get there by accident, walking a path impossible to remember and map out. Two eyes closed, one eye open. Formed by John Alfredsson and Jonas Jarlsby as teenagers, soon joined by Johannes Eckerstrom, Henrik Sandelin and Simon Andersson, Avatar started an evolution that would see a group always looking to con...