‘Elden Ring’ saved Serena Cherry’s life – so she made an extreme metal album about it

N octule, the solo project of former Svalbard vocalist Serena Cherry, doesn’t fit neatly into the rules of black metal.

Instead of raucous anthems about Satan and the Norse landscape, her upcoming second album ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ is all about fantasy game Elden Ring – the nightmarish epic filled with scary monsters and snarling beasties that’s sold more than 30million copies since its release in 2022.

READ MORE: How ‘Diablo’ continues to provide the definitive dark-fantasy game soundtrack Elden Ring’ s sprawling, open-world adventure is soundtracked by sparse, brooding instrumental music – but instead of channeling that, Cherry has smashed together the heavily-distorted, outrageously heavy genre of black metal with the more melodic, but no less forgiving melodeath (AKA melodic death metal) for ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’, which is out September 25.

It’s bigger and meaner than Noctule’s ferocious debut, which paid homage to 2011’s nerdy spells, swords and dragons role-playing game Skyrim .

“You look at most metal album covers and they look like something from World Of Warcraft , or vice versa,” Cherry tells NME from her living room, surrounded by Noctule vinyl and t-shirts ready to be sent out to fans.

“Not many people are chucking on a metal album when they’re doing the washing up, it’s not a passive listen.

You’re meant to [play] it loud and let it totally overcome you, in the same way that you get immersed in the world of video games.” Noctule, like a lot of DIY bedroom projects, was born during COVID .

Cherry had lost her day job in retail and her evenings were freed up thanks to a ban on live gigs.

She had first started experimenting with black metal as a teenager – using a tape recorder and a “crappy” drum machine to create rudimentary demos in her bedroom – and had always wanted to revisit the genre.

Now, stuck at home amid the enforced unemployment of lockdown, she could do just that.

Noctule’s Serena Cherry.

CREDIT: Serena Cherry Another of Noctule’s early influences was the aforementioned Skyrim , which she considers one of her favourite ever games.

Returning to the rich world of Tamriel during COVID meant Noctule’s first songs soon became “an ode to one of the greatest role-playing games of all time.” Full of crushing breakdowns, screamed vocals and soaring electric guitar licks, it’s the type of music you’d want playing if you were going up against a one thousand-year-old Dragon Priest with anger issues.

Cherry had no plans to release the tracks, but some friends talked her into putting ‘Wretched Abyss’ out online.