Noctule, 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.
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. She was “blown away” by the enthusiastic response: “It reassured me that extreme metal still has those corners that are open to something that doesn’t follow the rules.”
Progress on follow-up ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ has been slower going – cobbled together in spare moments on Svalbard world tours between 2023 and 2025. “I’ve got a whole bunch of voice notes on my phone of me singing riffs in a toilet in Australia,” Cherry says, clearly enjoying the creative control her new project offered. “We all contributed in Svalbard so I’m used to hearing ‘no’. With Noctule, I could do what I wanted and nothing could stop me.”
If Noctule’s first album was a tribute to Skyrim, then her second set of sinister thrashers owes a debt to Elden Ring. “‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ was my way of saying thank you to a game that I attribute to saving my life. I was so depressed just before it came out, and it gave me purpose and gave me strength,” says Cherry. “As soon as I started playing it, I knew I had to write about it.”
Usually, it’s cosy games such as Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley that get brought up during conversations about gaming and mental health – but Cherry finds their overly cheery escapism grating. “There’s comfort in art that’s unapologetically bleak,” she says. “Sometimes you just want to sit in the darkness… Elden Ring isn’t afraid to be unflinching in the way that it paints this world where everything is in turmoil. There’s a hopelessness to it.”
This hopelessness is felt most keenly during the many fiendishly tricky fights with merciless monster bosses – and this really drew Cherry in. “I’m not naturally that great at video games,” she says, “but with Elden Ring, everything about it was so tough that it brought out a stubbornness in me that’s actually quite healthy.” That same stubbornness now pushes her to go to the gym and to pursue her musical projects. “The game is basically a stern parental figure that motivates you to keep going. Writing this album was a celebration of the challenge that those bosses represented.”
After the lush, instrumental opener ‘Welcome To Limgrave’, which refers to the game’s open-field starting region, each ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ tune is about a different Elden Ring boss. And with more than 200 to choose from, Cherry had to be selective – only including her absolute favourites. It’s not pure fantasy though. “There are lyrics where I’ve drawn parallels between the lore of certain bosses and my own life,” she explains. Recent single ‘Goddess Of Rot’ is about the incredibly difficult, sword-wielding badass Malenia. “She’s such a tragic character but remains so defiant and loyal. The whole idea of loyalty that turns into a punishment is something I connected with.” ‘Lord Of Blood’ is a liberated rager about the towering, horned hulk Mogh and the meme-inspiring serpent Rykard also has his own song. Another track is about spurned and banished demigod Morgott, who was cast out by his family: “That reflects in me [because] I’ve never really felt part of the metal scene, in a lot of ways,” says Cherry, who’s previously spoken about gender inequality in heavy music.
“Using characters as a way to explore your thoughts and feelings makes you feel more protected than if you’re just speaking plainly,” says Cherry. It’s something she experienced first-hand while recording all the vocals for ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ in a single night. “With Svalbard, I usually ended up crying in the vocal booth. With Noctule, I had this big stance and I was belting out the screams. Sometimes you get moments when you’re creating music where you just feel bigger.”
‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ isn’t the first Noctule record, but it’s the first thing Cherry has released since Svalbard played their final ever show last month after more than 15 years as one of the most beloved metal bands in Britain. “Financially and life-wise, it was unsustainable to continue,” says Cherry. “It’s awkward to be one of those small to mid-sized bands. You’re releasing albums and touring as much as possible, but you’re not making any money from it so you all need to have full-time jobs. The balancing act was becoming incredibly stressful and draining. And that’s a quick way to ruin your dreams. It was impacting our creativity as well, so my outlook was that the only way for it to change was for it to end.” Cherry now feels like she has “everything to prove” with ‘Extinguish Thy Flame’.
As well as inspiring more metal fans to check out Elden Ring, Cherry hopes people can “draw a sense of fight and courage” from the project. “It’s very much an aggressive album that’s got its chest puffed out,” she says. “The whole experience was about finding the joy in creating music again – and celebrating the game that got me through the toughest times of my life. If this album has a similar impact on others, that would be amazing.”
‘Extinguish Thy Flame’ is out September 25. You can pre-order it here
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