Last year, Emperor announced their Complete Works vinyl box set, spanning the black metallers entire career. The box set will be the first time their works have been remastered specifically for vinyl and presented as special editions. It will be released by Finnish label Blood Music which has started revealing its contents now. Emperor's The Complete Works will be a 24-LP, one 7", and one book box set. The public pre-order date for the box set is slated to begin on December 9th, 2015.

The box set contains every Emperor release in its "most official" form, as well as a good handful of unofficial ones which are being made official for the first time ever.

Contents:

I - Wrath Of The Tyrant [1992] 45-RPM LP

The demo was self-released via cassette through mailorder and the infamous Helvete shop in Oslo, and it became an underground hit. Various licenses saw the material edited several times, with the original intro swapped out and an outro randomly added or removed, depending upon the release. The production sound has also existed in various formats throughout time.

II - Rehearsal 1992 [1992] 45-RPM LP

The 2nd LP in Emperor's The Complete Works box set marks the first-time official publication of an entire alternate playthrough of Wrath Of The Tyrant demo, prepared and furnished by the band themselves. Simply dubbed Rehearsal 1992, this recording (mastered specifically for this set) now marks the earliest official publication with Faust on drums and Samoth on guitar. The original Wrath Of The Tyrant demo featured Samoth on drums, due to lack of a suitable local black metal drummer at the time.

III - Emperor EP [1993] 45-RPM mLP

The first studio recordings of Emperor were released in their four song, self-titled EP in 1993. This EP marked many career-defining turning points for the band. The original EP features two re-recorded tracks from Wrath Of The Tyrant, alongside two new tracks. The mLP in common, current circulation is also extremely loud (same problem as Wrath Of The Tyrant). The mLP in The Complete Works set takes down the volume considerably and gives much more room for the dynamics in the material, to bring it back to its original state.

IV - The Akkerhaugen Tapes [1993] 45-RPM LP

The 4th LP in Emperor's The Complete Works box set features early rehearsal and pre-production versions of five different songs from the period between the band's self-titled EP and their debut album. The tracks were recorded in their rehearsal room in Akkerhaugen, Norway, and showcase the group perfecting their songwriting towards their massive breakthrough album. There are three raw, room-mic-recorded rehearsal tracks which have never been officially released before - "The Burning Shadows Of Silence," "Cosmic Keys To My Creations & Times," and "Towards The Pantheon."

V - In The Nightside Eclipse [1994] 45-RPM 2xLP

The infamous Emperor debut album marked not only a massive propulsion forward for the band, but also a grand statement for black metal as a whole. This is the recording that catapulted the group into the international spotlight as one of the key players in the Norwegian black metal uprising, eventually sweeping through much of mainstream media.

Instead of including version upon version of the same record, it was chosen to use the initial audio as the jumping off point. With this in mind, this is the quietest material in the set, meaning that you need to crank the volume; but once done, the keyboards will soar wider than ever before. It is very clear that the LP in common, current circulation has not been properly optimized for vinyl, as it sounds very thin. This 2xLP version gives perspective into how the material was originally intended to sound. Not just an attack, but eerie and all-encompassing. The album appears in its first pressing track listing without any bonus tracks.

Follow Blood Music's Facebook page to find out all the other details of the box set, set to be unveiled soon.

Source:	facebook.com
Band profile:	Emperor