The long-awaited ninth album, Age of Empire, is a bold, confronting and provocative responseto a world on fire, a tragic reflection on the hubris of power and the exile of truth. Crossing thecontinental fault line between East and West, OSTARA cuts deep into the raw nerve of an eraof pain, evoking the cruel lessons of the past to illuminate the fate and fury of today. From theSpanish Armada to the American Civil War, the destruction of Carthage to the twilight of Russia,the besieged Imperium of Germania to the catastrophic rebirth of Europa, this is a folk opusbolstered by military tattoos, choir, strings, lyricism, allegory, drama and a fistful of angst fromthe Troubadour of Doom.Eleven songs for the eleventh hour hurtling darkly towards midnight, Age of Empire marks twodecades of Richard Leviathans journey through myth, history and the liminal nature of the selfin the shape-shifting web of reality. Vulnerable and defiant, delicate and harsh, this is an elegyand an ode to the recurring fugue of death and transfiguration, dissolution and consummation.