THE MOSAIC WINDOW has released "Lightning Be Thy Guide", the second single from the new album Answered Prayers, and pre-orders for the record are now open. The song is out on all digital platforms, and the album follows on November 13 through Vesperian and Metal Blade Records.
The Los Angeles project is the solo vehicle of Andrew Steven "Skeletonhammer" Brown, who also plays in BONE ABDUCTION. When we covered the album announcement last week, lead single "What Sage Could Not Cleanse" set out the record's back-to-the-roots direction: a turn away from the polished, prog-leaning death/black hybrid of 2024's Hemasanctum toward the cold, fast, melodic attack of black metal's first and second waves.
"Lightning Be Thy Guide" shows the other side of the album. It runs mostly at mid-tempo and leans on dynamics and atmosphere rather than raw velocity, though the label stresses that it keeps the record's bite. It sits fourth in the running order, right before the lead single.
The ten tracks follow a bleak, nihilistic concept: a poisoned world whose only cure is the erasure of humanity, carried out retroactively, centuries before the Industrial Revolution could begin. Skeletonhammer handles all instruments and vocals, Dmitry Kim plays session drums, and Alex Sedin mixed and mastered the album at Ghostalgy Productions. The label describes the style simply as "existential black metal".
'Answered Prayers' tracklist:
- Premonition Of The Prophecy
- The Fog Carries Plague
- Serpentine
- Lightning Be Thy Guide
- What Sage Could Not Cleanse
- Blood And Chains
- Unsheathing The Fall Of Man
- Crusader
- Echoes Of Answered Prayers
- Devotion To My Burning Desire
Order & Stream "Answered Prayers": Bandcamp