Battle Magic is the third album by Bal-Sagoth, released in 1998 on Cacophonous Records. It is the last album to feature Jonny Maudling on drums, who following this album would go on to concentrate fully on playing the keyboards.
The cover artwork for the album features the fantasy character "Caylen-Tor", created by Bal-Sagoth vocalist/lyricist Byron Roberts.
The band were awarded one full month to record, much of which was spent on the orchestral arrangements. The keyboards in "Blood Slakes the Sand at the Circus Maximus" alone took six full days to complete. The opening of "Blood Slakes the Sand at the Circus Maximus" is identical to the score for the film Spartacus composed by Alex North.
Read more about Battle Magic: Track Listing, Personnel
Famous quotes containing the words battle and/or magic:
“Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
Love rules, Her gentler purpose runs.
A mighty mother turns in tears
The pages of her battle years,
Lamenting all her fallen sons!”
—Will Henry Thompson (1848–1918)
“But these young scholars, who invade our hills,
Bold as the engineer who fells the wood,
And travelling often in the cut he makes,
Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not
And all their botany is Latin names.
The old men studied magic in the flowers.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)