GRUESOME return with Silent Echoes, a ferocious death metal onslaught, fueled by progressive, razor sharp musicianship, out June 6 via Relapse Records. Silent Echoes marks the band’s first new full-length recording in 7 years.
Today, GRUESOME shares Silent Echoes’ first offering “A Darkened Window”. Watch the official music video (directed by The COIN) on the Relapse YouTube channel HERE.
GRUESOME comment on “A Darkened Window”: “It was the perfect song to pair with the visuals of the COIN, who captured the existential despair of lyrics perfectly – a vision of modern existence where every human emotion can be commoditized and therefore must be groomed, filtered and corrected into something synthetic and horrifying.”
Celebrating over a decade as the finest purveyors of old-school death metal inspired by the legendary Chuck Schuldiner and the many iterations of Death, the new album sees GRUESOME transition away from the no-frills riff-fests heard on their Savage Lands and Twisted Prayers LPs, and shift towards a more musically advanced, nuanced form of extremity. Silent Echoes is the quartet’s true “put up or shut-up” moment for one simple reason: It was written and recorded in the spirit of Death’s 1991 progressive death metal masterpiece, Human.
The prolonged gestation period between GRUESOME albums was the combination of several factors, yet none more significant than the untimely and unexpected passing of Cynic and Human-era Death drummer Sean Reinert in 2020. Reinert, the best friend and mentor of GRUESOME drummer Gus Rios and was originally slated to produce the album. Instead, Rios, along with vocalist/guitarist Matt Harvey, lead guitarist Daniel Gonzalez and bassist Robin Mazen, turned Silent Echoes into a tribute to Reinert, whose influence and presence on Silent Echoes is everywhere.
Silent Echoes is GRUESOME’s transmutation into the complex, jazz-influenced fields ploughed on Human. As Harvey states, “there’s less winking at the audience on this one,” which is true: The overtly intentional homages found on the band’s previous two albums have been replaced with fluid, agile drum work from Rios, as well as spiraling, multi-faceted guitar riffing from Harvey and Gonzalez, the latter responsible for the album’s prog-infused leads.
Jarrett Pritchard once again handled the production of Silent Echoes. A veteran of two previous GRUESOME studio albums (and dozens of other respected extreme metal acts), Pritchard’s engineering and technical expertise played a crucial role in enabling Silent Echoes to recapture the feel of early 1990s death metal recorded at Tampa’s famed Morrisound Recording. Not only did Pritchard lean on the advice of Death producer Scott Burns, but Rios also used the same snare drum that Reinert did on Cynic’s Focus.
At a time when the thirst for all things Chuck Schuldiner remains unquenchable, leave it to four accomplished, true, well-intentioned death metal veterans to help continue the man’s legacy.
SILENT ECHOES TRACKLIST:
1. Condemned Identity
2. A Darkened Window
3. Frailty
4. Shards
5. Silent Echoes
6. Voice Within The Void (Astral Ocean)
7. Fragments of Psyche
8. Reason Denied
GRUESOME is:
Daniel Gonzalez- Guitar
Matt Harvey – Guitar/Vocals
Robin Mazen – Bass
Gus Rios – Drums
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