Denver extreme metal quartet NECROPANTHER will release their fifth full-length album, The Book Of Change, digitally on November 13. The band has shared lead single "The Tempest," and preorders are open on Bandcamp.
NECROPANTHER mix thrash, death and black metal, and on the new record they build the whole album around one idea: transformation. Guitarist Joe Johnson says the album draws on stories of metamorphosis from science fiction, horror and literature, naming The Tempest, The Thing, The Fly, Faust and even the arcade game Rampage. In his words, those works pushed the band toward physical transformation, evolution, body horror and "the strangeness of things that are new and unknown."
"The Tempest" opens the album and takes its cue from the first scene of Shakespeare's play, where a ship is caught in a storm conjured by sorcery. Johnson notes that the band has always leaned on maritime themes, so this is "our storm to bring in the record." He adds that the play itself was inspired by a failed expedition to Bermuda, and the opening songs carry those ideas forward: change, bargains and the uncanny cost of ambition, before the record turns to more modern monsters.
Bassist and vocalist Marcus Corich calls the track representative of where the band is now: stripped down, fast, aggressive and heavy while keeping its musical sophistication. He describes the album's approach as "all-killer-no-filler."
The band produced The Book Of Change themselves. Felipe Patino engineered it at Green Door Recordings in Denver, Kurt Ballou (CONVERGE, HIGH ON FIRE) mixed it at GodCity Studio in Salem, Massachusetts, and Alan Douches mastered it at West West Side Music. The artwork is by Max Sherman.
Tracklist:
- The Tempest
- Caliban
- Ariel's Song
- Prospero
- Faust
- Mephistopheles
- The Thing from Another World
- Rampage / Scum Labs
- Seven Mile Slasher
- The Veil of Flesh
- Chopin Rediscovered Waltz - Found In New York, 2024 (Instrumental)
- Transmogrification (Instrumental)
- Thrash or Die (Instrumental)
NECROPANTHER are Paul Anop (guitar, vocals), Marcus Corich (bass, vocals), Joe Johnson (guitar) and Adam Frost (drums).
Order & Stream "The Book Of Change": Bandcamp
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