Since unleashing their debut album in 2010, Germany's Lord of the Lost have pushed the boundaries of their sound, which appeals to a broad spectrum of heavy music fans with sounds encompassing extreme metal, goth rock and industrial. They've returned with Thornstar, a thrilling double album centered around the story of the lost ancient civilization of the Pangaeians, and have teamed with Loudwire to bring you the exclusive first listen with a full stream found below.

Thornstar, out Aug. 3 on Napalm Records, is an album for fans of HIM, Rammstein, The Mission, Type O Negative, Moonspell and Fields of the Nephilim, fusing aggressive arena-styled beats with grandiose cinematic passages, metallic heft and utterly mesmerizing refrains.

Stream the album in the player below and if you like what you hear, pre-order your copy here. Crank it up and go a bit deeper into the album with our interview with guitarist Pi "π" Stoffers beneath the music player.

Lord of the Lost, Thornstar Album Stream

Interview With Lord of the Lost's Pi "π" Stoffers

The preparation for this album must have been intense. Did you consult with any historians when writing the lyrics or was this all researched independently by the band?

The preparation for this album, and on that matter, keeping track with the background story throughout the production process was very intense. We focused on making every single thing as cohesive with our concept as possible and I think that is really prominent when you’re actually paying attention to the lyrics because they all refer to the background story to some extent. When they were written, most of the research, which actually included using archives rather than historians, had already been done.

How did you first learn of the Pangaeians and when did your fascination with lost / ancient civilizations begin?

The first time that each one of us has heard of the Pangaeian civilization varies. For all of us, it was at some point in our youth. We actually started learning about the Pangaeians when Chris ["The Lord" Harms] initially brought it up as a kind of a concept for our album Thornstar. That’s when we started digging deeper, gathering any information we could find. I’m not quite sure though, when our interested for ancient civilizations began in general. I guess to make an album with that kind of background story there has to be some general historical interest that we just seem to inherit.

For those looking to research this civilization more, are there any specific books you would recommend?

I’d recommend the background story, that you can download on our website. It contains all the information that we were able to gather and is available in multiple languages!

Lord of the Lost's sound is expansive and appeals to a wide range of fans from metal to industrial to goth. This fluidity either helps bands because they can fit onto a variety of different bills or hurts them as fans of one genre can say the sound leans too heavily in a direction they don't like. What type of crowd have you received the best response / biggest support from?

I think that being able to lean towards a certain direction sonically is also a big advantage. It shows that we are able to cater to a variety of crowds, no matter if it is a straight up metal show or a rather goth / industrial show.

It is the same thing as bands putting out albums that differentiate in terms of sound, where every album leans towards a certain direction. With us, you’ll always get that from album to album, but then again on one album itself while always retaining a cohesiveness sound. As it will always come down to personal taste in music, you’ll never be able to make everyone happy. If you try, you’ll set yourself up for failure. You win a lot, you sometimes lose some and that is okay.

With us, a wide range of your musical taste buds will be satisfied. If one dish isn’t your thing, we’d happily let you try something else from our menu!

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