Following up on February’s “Beats of Failure” and March’s “Speechless”, the Norwegian darkwave duo Rule of Two return with a new single titled “Without”, officially releasing this Friday, April 25. The track is being premiered today exclusively on our pages, ahead of its full release. A music video is also in the works, currently being edited, and expected soon.
Since the beginning of 2024, Rule of Two—comprised of Ronny Flissundet and Kristian Liljan—have kept up a steady rhythm of monthly releases, pairing songs with striking artwork and, increasingly, music videos. With 15 singles and 2 EPs already out, the duo’s catalog is a continuous sequence of sounds and visuals, often drawing on personal histories or symbolic fragments, and occasionally dipping into reinterpretations of others’ work.
“Without” fits neatly into this trajectory. The artwork, again AI-generated, shows an artificial hand holding ashes—“which could be the remains of something that is no more,” as Flissundet describes it. “It captures the meaning behind the song and lyrics, displaying what’s left of something that has passed.” The minimal but metaphor-heavy concept reflects a theme of aftermath—what stays when connection, feeling, or form disappears.
This release extends the visual streak begun by “Speechless” in March—another track accompanied by AI art, that time depicting a mouth zipped shut, chosen to illustrate silence as presence rather than absence. The AI angle is now deliberate, part of their process. “In our shameless series of artificial intelligence hired graphic designer artworks,” Flissundet adds, hinting at both self-awareness and a practical embrace of new tools.
The duo’s approach to artwork has become as central to their identity as the music. Flissundet handles lyrics, guitar, and vocals, while Liljan produces and manages the visual side—either directly or, more recently, via AI tools or collaborators. “The man behind most of the artwork and videos is 50% of the band,” Flissundet says, nodding to Liljan. But the project remains collaborative at its core.
In a new statement reflecting on their output so far, Flissundet outlines each release chronologically, starting from January 2024’s “Bygones”—a track dedicated to his late father, using a teenage photo of him as cover art—and moving through personal, philosophical, and surreal motifs. Whether it’s childhood injuries (“Elusive Infinity”), aquatic love metaphors (“Drowning”), or public artwork competitions (“Peeling”), each single has been matched with a distinct visual cue.
“Here is a walkthrough of all,” he writes, introducing a full retrospective list of tracks, visuals, and personal commentary from January 2024 onward. That full list is published below and offers not just a catalog, but a kind of evolving self-portrait—layered across songs, memories, design choices, and quiet confessions.
Read the full walkthrough of Rule of Two’s singles, artwork, and music videos since January 2024 below.
“Bygones” – January 2024
Our very first written, recorded and released song. Since it’s about my dead father, and how he has affected my life, we chose to use an old picture of him for the cover. He must be around 15 on the picture, all dressed up in his fine suit in the yard outside where he grew up. Nostalgic and sentimental song, that suits the same in the imagery.
“Elusive Infinity” – February 2024
This image is a childhood picture of Kristian (producer and bass player) where he is maybe 9 years old, showing his leg where he just accidentally shot himself with an air rifle (!) The artwork here has absolutely nothing to do with the song or lyrics, which are criticism on religious views and beliefs. But the feeling of the image and music together still made sense on some level.
“Something In The Way” – March 2024
A cover version of Nirvana, which me and my ex did on a creative vacation to Firenze, Italy the fall of 23. The artwork is just a zoomed in outtake and graphically edited part of their “Nevermind” cover, with our logo on the sides. Please don’t sue us, Courtney.
“The Hulk” – April 2024
This picture is a mash up of mine and Kristian’s faces, where one is upside down, creating an eerie and freaky portrait that displays the Jekyll and Hyde sides in us, which is also the meaning behind the song and lyrics.
“Tainted Lullaby” – May 2024
A song about comfort, a lullaby saying “there, there. There are no monsters under your bed”. “I’m gonna protect you” etc. So this picture is of Kristians daughter lifted and comforted by her mother. Beautifully expressional and perfect for this track.
“Drowning” – June 2024
A love song full of underwater metaphors. So both the music video and artwork tells the same story. Two clear blue jellyfish under water, a picture taken from some aquarium somewhere, but really beautifully captured, and fitting the artwork for “Drowning”, which is both a single track and the name of our first EP release, gathering this and all the tracks above in one.
“Year Zer0” – August 2024
The music video is one of my favorites, displaying a digital timer counting down backwards from beginning to end in front of the world going to shit, which it really is.
While the cover art hos really nothing to do with this, only showing a beautiful zoomed in baby picture of my daughter in black and white, in her year zero..
“Peeling” – September 2024
This one is a bit special, as we initiated an artwork competition on our social media.
The song is about feelings and secrets and inner life etc, using the metaphors of the layers of an onion. So we asked for onion artwork, and received quite a lot of different and creative contributions with different styles and angles. The one we ended up using, was by far the best one, made by graphic designer and friend Louise Marie Pedersen.
“Man Of No Use” – October 2024
A philosophical song about the more existential questions. Hard to capture these kind of things graphically, but we ended up using a still from the music video, that somehow captured a bit of the emotions behind it.
“Eye Fold” – November 2024
Wordplay. Dad humor or just plain stupid, but still an idea we worked with. In the lyrics I am singing about how I fold. Giving up on someone. So the “I” in me got translated into “eye”, and the artwork was really simple. What is more expressional than the eyes. So here is a picture of an eye fold. Simple.
“Monstrance Clock” – Halloween 2024
Another cover song we did, by the band Ghost. This was released on Halloween 24, and the video was made for a Halloween music video special feature for the Norwegian music webzine Ballade, kind of. The image on the artwork is me standing outside the eerie cathedral Vålerenga Kirke in Oslo, using a Ghost singer Papa Emeritus snapchat filter, and then later editing this photo again with various graphic tools.
“All Good Things (Come To An End)”- December 2024
Yet another cover song we did, on an impulse where we felt the need to step out of the comfort zone and challenge ourselves. Covering Nelly Furtado? Is that even allowed? Well, why not. Turned out really cool. The artwork is a mash up graphics of me and Kristian playing a live show with one of our other bands, on top of some Oslo street footage.
“Golden Hour”- January 2025
A song all about mood. So this artwork was a given one. Kristian was taking an evening drive and captured the beautiful sunset and colored sky at the end of the road ahead, probably driving home from rehearsals or something. No questions asked, just, “this is the cover art”. Sure.
“Echoes” – January 2025
„Echoes“ is our second EP release, gathering our last 5 single releases + some more into this compilation. Since this stretch of music had a lot of 80s synthpop vibes in them, it felt nice to make a graphic artwork where we overdid this feel, making it look like some mix of an old Commodore 64 video game, and a cheezy tropical commercial or something. It just fitted the vibe spot on, and I love the imagery.
“Beats Of Failure”- February 2025
First music video made by someone else than Kristian, who did all of the above. This one was made by new contribution to the band, Tyge Møller Christiansen. But Kristian still made the cover art, like always. This one is more AI generated and edited, showing a Japanese back alley or something, misty and empty, with a lot of unreadable (for us) street signs etc, mashed up with various Rule Of Two logos and song title in various fonts. More of a projection of the mood of the song, really, than describing the theme of the song.
“Speechless” – March 2025
Also an AI generated artwork, made from the simple idea we had just from the word “Speechless”, showing an anonymous person with his mouth shut by a zipper. Super clean and simple, but like the saying “a picture tells more than a thousand words”, this one came easy.
“Without”- April 2025
In our shameless series of artificial intelligence hired graphic designer artworks, we did the same with our brand new single “Without”, which is showing an artificial hand holding ashes, which could be the remains of something that is no more, which also captures the meaning behind the song and lyrics, displaying what’s left of something that has passed.
And here is a list of favorite iconic album artworks from some of our favorite artists:, randomly listed, without further commentary, as a good artwork should be able to speak for itself:
Sonic Youth – “Goo”
Faith No More – “Angel Dust”
Black Sabbath – “Black Sabbath”
Afghan Whigs – “Do The Beast”
Ministry – “Psalm 69”
Korn – “Follow The Leader”
Cult Of Luna – “Eternal Kingdom”
