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Song

Spirit Helper

Artist

Enslaved featuring Kevin Kicking Woman

Enslaved backstory

Formed in 1991 by Ivar Bjørnson and Grutle Kjellson, Norway’s Enslaved boast a career akin to a Viking saga. There’s has been a journey of voyage and enlightenment, from forging their own embryonic black metal on 1993’s Hordanes Land and 94’s Vikingligr Veldi, to creating the epic Eld, to taking a more progressive path as the noughties arrived.

The band’s recent form has been exceptional, with the likes of E, Utgard and Heimdal sailing across new dimensions – and exploring the space between worlds.

Enslaved are also keen collaborators.

In 2024, they teamed up with British composer and cellist Jo Quail for a stunning re-imagination of Forest Dweller.

Earlier this year, the quintet unveiled that they’d recorded two sea shanties – Fire Marengo and Anna Lovinda – with Bergen’s Storm Weather Shanty Choir.

And now, they’ve released Spirit Helper, a new track featuring vocals from Kevin Kicking Woman, an Elder of the Blackfeet Nation.

It’s been born from Enslaved’s relationship with the Fire in the Mountains festival, which takes place each year within the Blackfeet Nation, Montana

In the collaborators’ own words

Kevin Kicking Woman (pictured bottom left with Ivar Bjørnson) said: “Songs are the Blackfoot way of knowing, expressing relationship and responsibility, belonging and accountability.

“The purpose of this song is having the performative expression giving meaning to life. Connecting to the universes through the cosmos, earth beings, water beings and spirit beings. 

!Spirit Helper is the physical documentation in this process.”

Enslaved guitarist Ivar Bjørnson commented: “For Enslaved, the path toward this collaboration began in Colorado in 2019. Through our extended musical family – including shared connections with Wardruna, our longtime management, and the wider community surrounding Fire in the Mountains – we were introduced to one of the festival organisers; Shane McCarthy and the vision behind the gathering that would eventually lead us toward the Blackfeet Nation in Montana. What initially began as conversations around performances and artistic collaboration slowly evolved into something much deeper: an exchange of perspectives, histories, and spiritual traditions shaped by many people along the way.

“Those connections continued to grow over the following years through both Fire in the Mountains and the wider community surrounding By Norse Music – the label and artistic platform founded by members of Enslaved and Wardruna together with our manager Simon Füllemann. Through By Norse, new conversations, meetings, and cultural exchanges emerged, eventually helping create the conditions that made Spirit Helper possible.

“When Fire in the Mountains were to return in 2025 on Blackfeet land in East Glacier, Montana, those relationships deepened further. The festival brought together artists, organizers, elders, and community members in an environment centered around dialogue, music, and cultural exchange. We were welcomed into conversations and ceremonies that left a profound impact on us. Throughout Enslaved’s history, mythology and spiritual traditions have functioned as a language within our music – a way of connecting personal experience with deeper human memory and history. Meeting members of the Blackfeet community felt like encountering another expression of that same search for meaning, continuity, and connection.

“During the festival, I got to know Nick Rink of the Blackfeet Nation, and through Nick I was later introduced to Kevin Kicking Woman, elder of the Blackfeet Nation, whose presence became central to the development of the song. Through these friendships – together with the openness and encouragement shown by the wider Blackfeet community and the people behind Fire in the Mountains – conversations gradually developed into mutual trust and eventually the idea of creating music together. Throughout the process, there was a shared understanding that this collaboration needed to be approached with honesty, transparency, and respect.

“During a later gathering in New York, attended by representatives from the Blackfeet community, Fire in the Mountains, the Firekeeper Alliance, and Enslaved, Kevin shared a traditional morning prayer song with us – a deeply personal and spiritual piece that he generously entrusted to me and Enslaved as the foundation for a new composition. I immediately recognised the responsibility carried within that gesture. Rather than simply building around Kevin’s contribution, it became important for me to allow the music itself to adapt to the pulse, rhythm, and spirit already present within his song.

“Over the following months, we worked to find a musical language where these worlds could coexist naturally – allowing Enslaved to remain fully itself while honoring the cadence, emotional core, and spiritual energy of Kevin’s prayer. The process was guided not only by the collaboration itself, but also by the encouragement, dialogue, and openness shown by the wider community surrounding the project. Gradually, the song revealed its own identity.

“That process ultimately became Spirit Helper.

“For us, the song represents far more than a collaboration between artists from different backgrounds. It reflects what can happen when people meet openly, listen carefully, and allow themselves to be changed by the encounter.

“Ultimately, Spirit Helper is a song about connection – between past and present, traditions and people, and the spiritual and human worlds. For Enslaved, it stands as one of the most meaningful musical journeys we have undertaken.”

The verdict on Spirit Helper

Enslaved’s work has always had a mystical quality to it. The band soar into the cosmos, yet they’re also wrapped in the Earth’s roots and anchored to the ancient past. The hypnotic, incredibly powerful Spirit Helper, therefore, makes perfect sense.

The stars must have aligned when the Norwegians’ first met Kevin Kicking Woman: this song sounds like it was meant to be.

What’s next for Enslaved?

First up is an appearance at Fire in the Mountains itself, which runs from July 23 to July 26 in Montana.

The band will also be playing at Sortland Jazzfestival 2026 in Sortland, Norway on September 18 and at Oslo Spektrum with Satyricon and Dimmu Borgir at a Halloween bash on October 31.

Photo (top): Chantik Photography.

Kevin Kicking Woman and Ivar Bjørnson photo: Tomoko Inoue @TheTinfoilBiter.