[photos by Adam Peterson]
Arkansas’ gloom metal harbingers DEADBIRD return with III: The Forest Within The Tree, the band’s eagerly anticipated third LP, and first new album in ten years. The band, containing current and former members of Rwake, Iron Tongue, Pallbearer, and more, will release the new LP through 20 Buck Spin in October. Revolver Magazine is now hosting a premiere of the soaring “Brought Low,” one of the album’s most powerful tracks.
Recorded in “the ZZ Top Room” at Ardent Studios and at AB Recording, both in Memphis, Tennessee, engineered, co-Produced, and mixed by Alan Burcham, and mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege, III: The Forest Within The Tree features vibrant artwork by John Santos (Kylesa, Mutoid Man, Torche, Noothgrush, Catheter).
With the premiere of “Brought Low” DEADBIRD guitarist/vocalist Chuck Schaaf remarks, “Alan (Short, guitar/vocals) and I more or less split the songs down the middle, vocal wise on this record. He sings ‘Luciferous Heart’ and ‘Alexandria’ and wrote the words for those two. I sing ‘The Singularity,’ ‘Heyday,’ and this song, ‘Brought Low,’ and wrote those lyrics. On ‘Bone and Ash’ everything is more or less 50/50. When we were in the studio together with Alan Burcham cutting vocals, I made the statement that I was attempting to come from a different place in my heart on this one. I’m a father now and realized that the incessant self-loathing that dominated my 20s and 30s was no place to come from as a parent. Alan said he had done the same thing in trying to come from a more uplifting/positive space. We’re all dads. We joke and call the band Dadbird at times. I’ve worked really hard to change a lot of my perspective and thinking about myself, people and the world in general in light of fatherhood. Choosing to look for the good, the positive, the sublime aspects of this world. I feel like there is a pushback amongst us regular folk against all this division and hatred and atrocities that we’re bombarded with everywhere we look. You don’t generally hear about all the acts of kindness though. It’s not good for ratings I guess. This track right here though is straight up about being blindsided by depression/anxiety and the absolute self-hatred and hopelessness that those two psychological/emotional aberrations scream at you from within your mind the whole time you’re in that hole.”
Revolver Magazine remarks, “Their latest single is ‘Brought Low,’ which opens with somber strains that touch on DEADBIRD‘s country roots, blossoming into a heavier riff teetering in the darkness. Then it all explodes, taking those somber quiet moments and turning them inside out for an epic, harmonized dual-guitar chorus. The whole thing then spirals back for the listener to take the journey again, descending down a hole of despair and shadowed beauty.”
Stream DEADBIRD’s “Brought Low” through Revolver Magazine at THIS LOCATION.
III: The Forest Within The Tree will see release on LP, CD, and digital formats via 20 Buck Spin on October 12th. Find preorders at the label webshop HERE and via Bandcamp where “Luciferous Heart” and “Alexandria” are also streaming HERE.
Following their set at Migration Festival in Pittsburgh in July DEADBIRD is booking new live actions in support of III: The Forest Within The Tree, including two record release shows for the album. The band will play two Arkansas shows the week of the album’s release, performing n Little Rock on October 12th and Fayetteville on October 13th. Watch for more tour dates to be announced.
DEADBIRD Record Release Shows:
10/12/2018 White Water Tavern – Little Rock, AR w/ Terminal Nation, Tranquilo.
10/13/2018 Backspace – Fayetteville, AR w/ Bones Of The Earth, Groaners
A decade has now passed since the release of Twilight Ritual, the second LP from Little Rock/Fayetteville-based DEADBIRD. Though much has changed in the metal world since then DEADBIRD remains steadfast in their ability to sculpt heart-wrenching and gutsy songs from the deepest, darkest places within. Years of toil and scorched southern soil went into the band’s third album III: The Forest Within The Tree resulting in forty haunting minutes of emotive turbulence and resolute grit.
An intense listen from the outset, after “The Singularity” intro the one-two punch of “Luciferous Heart” and “Heyday” carry the weight of the grandiose and the grave, burning with furor and primordial light. At times dipping into quietly morose acoustics and at others crushing with a Neurosis-like magnitude, DEADBIRD offers the scope of the world weary and of sentiment laid bare on compositions like “Brought Low” and “Bone & Ash.”
Ten years is not a short time between albums, but the passing of years have solidified DEADBIRD into an entity well versed in the art of vigilance. The eight tracks comprising III: The Forest Within The Tree are their best to date and signal the awakening of new day for the band. The album is a must-hear release for fans of Rwake, Samothrace, Neurosis, Alice In Chains, Kylesa, Pallbearer, Spirit Adrift, His Hero Is Gone, and El Dopa.
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