Panopticon is now streaming "The Death Of Baldr And The Coming War" off the recently remixed and remastered version of Collapse, which was originally released in 2009. The new version of the album is available for digital pre-order here and on LP and CD here.
Panopticon mastermind Austin Lunn offered the following story to accompany the reissue.
"Well over a decade ago I tracked this album in a dank basement in Louisville, Kentucky, with one of my best friends at the controls…It was rough around the edges, but a very creative time for me and I thoroughly enjoyed making this album. I learned a lot about my process as a musician, a song writer and a lyricist. I made a lot of mistakes, and grew from them, but all in all I look back on that time period very fondly.
"Since 2008 when this album was recorded, a lot has changed in the world (at the time of this writing it is 2021). Reading through the lyrics and liner notes, I can remember how I felt writing it… like I was watching a storm roll in from the distance, helpless to wait for it to bare down on us all. I obviously had no idea what was coming…
"The strange thing is that the challenges we have faced on this planet since then have been so different than I imagined in my mind… as a younger version of myself, I imagined this dystopian future… like something from a Hollywood film… but in truth, the hardships we would face didn’t all happen at once, they didn’t come on like a storm, they were more like slowly rising flood waters, eventually pulling us under in it’s swift current and pummeling us with debris.
"It feels strangely appropriate to reissue this album this year (2021), in the wake of the pandemic and political turmoil that has embroiled the United States over the past several years. I remember feeling like I was being so paranoid when I was writing this record… I joked I should sell tin foil hats with copies of the album. In truth, looking back, I wasn’t that far off… ain’t that some shit?!
"I want to give a special thanks for the two engineers who made this release possible, the original engineer who worked tracked it, A.P Lunn, my 'cosmic twin' as he used to put it when we were younger. I love you brother. Thank you so much.
"And I want to thank my incredibly patient, dear friend and collaborator Spenser Morris, for fixing all my sloppy performances and helping make this album a cleaner, tighter version. As I stated above, I have certainly learned from my mistakes. I am so glad to have this opportunity to go back and fix some of them.
"I want to especially thank my wife, Bekah for her photography and contributions to the album, but most of all her support from the beginning. If it wasn’t for her encouragement and support, I never would have done any of this."
