After nearly two decades in the shadows, The Berzerker’s long-rumoured “lost album” is finally set to return.
Originally written, recorded, and self-released in 2008 by Luke Kenny via Berzerker Industries following the band’s departure from Earache Records, The Reawakening stands as the fifth full-length release from one of Australia’s most extreme and uncompromising underground acts.
A feral fusion of industrial death metal, hyperspeed programming, and relentless sonic aggression, The Reawakening captures The Berzerker at their most intense. Tracks such as “Wisdom and Corruption,” “Caught in the Crossfire,” and “The Deception” pushed the project’s extremity and independence to new limits, quickly earning cult status among listeners drawn to its sheer intensity and refusal to conform.
Despite a strong underground response and a dedicated global following, growing frustration with the music industry led to the album being pulled from sale and streaming shortly after its original release. Over time, The Reawakening became a near-mythic release—circulating through word of mouth, file sharing, and rare physical copies passed between diehard fans as The Berzerker’s “lost album.”
Now, that changes.
Through a new partnership with extreme music label Apocalyptic Witchcraft Recordings, The Reawakening is being brought back into circulation with its first official, fully supported reissue campaign. Founded in 2015, Apocalyptic Witchcraft has built a reputation for uncompromising releases in black, death, and experimental metal, making it a fitting home for the return of one of extreme music’s most notorious missing chapters.
This reissue restores The Reawakening to its rightful place in The Berzerker’s legacy—not as a forgotten footnote, but as a vital statement from a band that consistently operated beyond convention, beyond compromise, and ahead of its time. For longtime supporters who kept the record alive in the underground, and for a new generation discovering it for the first time, this release marks its return to the spotlight.
Apocalyptic Witchcraft’s Conor Droney comments:
“Discovering The Berzerker on a compilation at 15 was a life-changing moment that set me on the path I’m on today. It is only right that The Berzerker would end up working with Apocalyptic Witchcraft. The kings of extreme metal have returned.”
The Reawakening will be released on limited edition splatter vinyl, digipak CD, and cassette on 30 October, ahead of the band’s performance at Damnation Festival. The album will also return to all digital platforms on 17 July.