She Says Elden Ring Saved Her Life, So She Wrote an Entire Album About It

Humming riffs into her phone in an Australian bathroom in the middle of the night—that's how Serena Cherry wrote this album. As the former frontwoman of British metal band Svalbard, she's spent the past few years sneaking in writing time between tours for her solo project Noctule, piecing together scattered voice memos into a full-length hybrid of black metal and melodeath that plays like a soundtrack to hell.

Noctule's new album Extinguish Thy Flame drops September 25, themed around the video game Elden Ring. The dark fantasy title, which has sold over 30 million copies since its 2022 release, is more than just a source of inspiration for Cherry. She told NME: "This album is my way of saying thank you to a game that saved my life. I was in a really dark place before it came out, but it gave me purpose and strength."

Unlike gentler games such as Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley that let players catch their breath, Cherry gravitates toward Elden Ring's unflinching sense of despair. "Some art is just meant to be relentlessly dark," she says. "Sometimes you just want to sit in the darkness." The game's nearly unbeatable boss fights, meanwhile, forged in her what she calls a "healthy" kind of stubbornness—one that's since carried over into the gym, and into songwriting.

The album's opening track, "Welcome To Limgrave," echoes the game's initial open-world map, with each subsequent song mapped to a different boss. With over 200 bosses in the game, Cherry picked only her personal favorites to write about. The single "Goddess Of Rot" is about Malenia, the tragic blade-wielding character: "She's so tragic yet still rebelliously loyal—loyalty that eventually becomes its own punishment—something I really relate to." "Lord Of Blood" is dedicated to the horned monster Mogh, while another track is written for Morgott, the demigod exiled by his own family: "This reflects my own experience—there were so many times I never really felt like I belonged in the metal scene." Cherry has previously spoken about gender inequality within the heavy music community.

This marks Cherry's first release since Svalbard wrapped up their 15-year run as a performing band last month. She says the band's breakup came down to financial and life realities: "Being a small-to-mid-sized band is genuinely embarrassing—you keep putting out albums and touring, but you don't make money, and everyone has to rely on day jobs to get by. That balancing act became more and more draining, and it was eating into our creativity too, so I felt like the only way to change things was to let it end." Now, she says she feels "like I have something to prove" with Extinguish Thy Flame.

Cherry recorded all the vocals for the album in a single night. "With Svalbard, I'd often end up crying in the vocal booth. But making Noctule, I stand tall and just let the screams out. Some creative moments make you feel like you've become bigger than yourself." Beyond hoping the album inspires more metal fans to pick up Elden Ring, she wants listeners to walk away with "a sense of fight and courage."