Technically, we should have posted this yesterday, but yesterday was April Fool’s Day, and people might have thought we were making up some of this shit. But it’s all true, and nothing happens on April 2 to plant doubt about truth. Except for what causes doubt to be planted about truth on any other day of the year.

Here we are at the beginning of the second quarter of 2011 — the time when for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is supposed to spring.  Where I live, spring has apparently been victimized by a brutal street mugging and is hospitalized at the moment.  A few plants have been deluded into thinking it’s spring, but for the rest of our local world, it’s still fucking winter.

Fortunately, the change of the seasons have fuck all to do with the release of metal. What we do with these installments of METAL IN THE FORGE is collect news blurbs and press releases we’ve seen over the last 30 days (or in this case, the last 31 days) about forthcoming new albums from bands we know and like (including updates about releases we’ve included in previous installments of this series), or from bands that look interesting, even though we don’t know them yet. And in this post, we cut and paste the announcements and compile them in alphabetical order.

This isn’t a cumulative list, so be sure to check the Category link called “Forthcoming New Albums” on the right side of this page to see forecasted releases we reported in previous installments. This month’s list begins right after the jump. Look for your favorite bands, or get intrigued about some new ones. There’s some awesome shit on the way. Dive in after the jump.

For those of you who’ve been hoping for a concept album based on the life of Eric the Red, the long wait is over: Thrudvangar has just released their fourth album, Durch Blut und Eis (Through Blood and Ice). Even if you haven’t been waiting for an Eric-the-Red concept album, Durch Blut und Eis is definitely worth checking out anyway.

This seems to be our week for discovering awesome bands that have been around for a while but somehow eluded our notice. Yesterday it was Shining, today it’s Thrudvangar.  This band from the former East Germany takes its name from the mythical home of the Norse thunder god Thor, and as you might expect, they play Viking metal — but a heavily blackened form of the genre. In fact, it might be more accurately descriptive to say it’s Viking-ed black metal.

But before we get to the awesomeness of the music, it’s only fair to say a word about Eric the Red. As Viking explorers go, his story is a good one. (more after the jump, including a song to stream . . . .)