Meredead

Meredead is the fourth studio album by the German/Norwegian symphonic metal band Leaves' Eyes. It was released on 22 April 2011 on Napalm Records. The Deluxe Edition of the album contains a bonus DVD with five songs from a live performance recorded at the Metal Female Voices Fest, in Wieze, Belgium, on 24 October 2010.

Title
The title is inspired by the Old English compound noun meredēað, literally "sea-death", which is attested (in the genitive plural meredēaða) in the passage rodor swipode meredēaða mǣst, literally: "the greatest quantity of sea-deaths scourged the skies", in Exodus, the second poem of the Junius manuscript, in the section telling the story of the Crossing of the Red Sea. Alternatively, meredēað could be translated as "sea of death" or "deadly sea" in view of a later passage in the same text: meredēað geswealh, literally "sea-death swallowed". On her website, Liv Kristine explicitly recommends Marsden 2004, and quotes the explanation for meredēað given in the book, saying that Meredead could be translated as "dead by the sea".

Leaves' Eyes

 * Liv Kristine Espenæs – lead and backing vocals
 * Alexander Krull – harsh vocals, keyboards, programming, samples
 * Thorsten Bauer – guitars, bass, mandolin on tracks 1, 5 and 12
 * Sander van der Meer - guitars
 * Roland Navratil - drums, percussions

Additional musicians

 * Lingua Mortis Orchestra from Minsk, Belarus, directed by Victor Smolski
 * Al dente Choir from Kleinbottwar, Germany, directed by Veronika Messmer
 * Anette Guldbrandsen - backing vocals, lead vocals on tracks 4, 8, 10, 11
 * Carmen Elise Espenæs - lead and backing vocals on track 7
 * Maite Itoiz - lead and backing vocals on tracks 2 and 6, baroque guitar on track 12
 * John Kelly - lead vocals on track 12
 * Christian Roch - Uilleann pipes and whistles
 * Janna Kirchhof - fiddle on tracks 2, 3 and 11, nyckelharpa on track 4

Production

 * Alexander Krull - producer, engineer, mixing and mastering at Mastersound Studios
 * Thorsten Bauer, Liv Kristine Espenæs - assistant engineers
 * Victor Smolski - orchestra recording engineer
 * Orchestral arrangements by Leaves' Eyes