Oceans of Slumber have officially unveiled their upcoming album Where Gods Fear to Speak, and dropped a performance video for the second single, “Poem of Ecstasy.”
The track puts the band’s signature dark and cinematic style on full display, and strings together numerous standout moments, sorta giving the feel of a mini-epic. We got haunting vocals and a smooth piano entrance, with a transition to doom-laden power metal, culminating with death growls and blast beats, in some sort of a “dystopian grindcore”.
“Where Gods Fear to Speak exists somewhere between The Handmaid’s Tale, The Dark Tower, and Cormac McCarthy”, says drummer and main songwriter Dobber Beverly. “It’s part science fiction, a part western gunslinger with a heavy dash of post-apocalyptic survival”.
“Every time you make a new record, you think it’s the best,” Dobber continues, “but ‘Poem of Ecstasy’ is easily one of the best songs we’ve ever written. It sounds like an energetic, pissed-off-band, with enigmatic storytelling and all those magical things”.
“All of the songs on Where Gods Fear to Speak are set in this futuristic, derelict world, where the lower class are rebelling against their overzealous rulers”, says frontwoman Cammie Beverly, “but ‘Poem of Ecstasy’ is the album’s big no-holds-barred love song.”
When writing the lyrics, Cammie was inspired by Blade Runner and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. “Sometimes, we’re so hellbent on pursuing our dreams that we lose sight of the people we’re fighting for”, she says. “How can you save the world if you can’t even save yourself?”
“I think Cammie is the best singer in America by far, but if she’s at such a top level and we still can’t break through, that just means that if we want to stay where we are, we’ve got to work harder!” Dobber adds. “We know how good we are, and how good the music is, but it doesn’t pay off for us all the time and the new record reflects that. It’s aggressive, it’s aggravated, but it tells a story. The closing song, “Impermanence Of Fate” – that’s the tag. It means that what you have it isn’t a fatal flaw or a mortal wound, and you can change things and work around these setbacks. So a lot of this record is fight songs.”
Pre-order Where Gods Fear to Speak here.
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