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Stream BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS’ The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me HERE.
The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me, the mammoth new full-length from New Zealand-based progressive death metal collective BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS, is out TODAY on Prosthetic Records!
What does obsession do to your mind? When you fixate on one particular person, place, or event, it clouds your thoughts, pollutes your feelings, and takes over your very being. You lose yourself and succumb to your basest instincts to pursue this obsession at all costs. BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS channels the extremes of a psychotic break into an ambitious sonic tableau of intricately airtight metal, eerie production, and insidiously memorable screams. Set to this pummeling soundtrack, the quintet implants an immersive story into the core of their fifth full-length offering, The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me.
Everything in Noise writes in part, “The weight, intensity, and speed are all great at expressing the darker emotions wrenching out of us in different ways with questionable legality. The angularity, diversity, and chaos propel it all in compelling, exacting ways so as to at least emulate a concord of ideas on a cerebral level. In other words, it’s frenetic and fancy.” Toilet Ov Hell notes, “From bursts of atonal tapping (think Cytotoxin or Beneath The Massacre) to post-metal melodies, The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me (rolls off the tongue!) defies expectations, logic, and sanity,” while Apanthropy hails, “…a constant tension-inducing blast of dissonant, progressive, technical death metal,” adding, “It moves like gears in a complex machine, each modicum of movement is precise, accurate, brutally efficient, stick your fingers inside and you’ll pull back stumps. It’s controlling and merciless, like choking somebody out and bringing them back only to choke them out again, over and over.” Heavy Music HQ concurs, “Far from simply following in the footsteps of its predecessor, this album asserts itself as a confident step forward, proving the band’s ability to innovate while deepening their voice within extreme metal.”
Preview/purchase BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS’ The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me HERE.
Watch BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS’ lyric video for “Cafuné” HERE and music video for “Compulsion” HERE.
In celebration of the release of The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me, BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS return to US soil tonight, October 10th, in Los Angeles, California with Volcandra for a three-week tour. The journey runs through November 1st in Las Vegas, Nevada. See all confirmed dates below.
BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS w/ Volcandra:
10/10/2025 The Virgil – Los Angeles, CA
10/11/2025 Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA
10/12/2025 Transplants Brewing – Palmdale, CA
10/14/2025 DNA Lounge – San Francisco, CA
10/15/2025 The Dip – Redding, CA
10/16/2025 The High-Water Mark – Portland, OR
10/17/2025 Substation – Seattle, WA
10/18/2025 Ray’s Golden Lion – Richland, WA
10/19/2025 The Shredder – Boise, ID
10/20/2025 Aces High Saloon – Salt Lake City, UT
10/22/2025 The Crypt – Denver, CO
10/23/2025 1867 Bar – Lincoln, NE
10/24/2025 Underground Music Venue – Minneapolis, MN
10/25/2025 Club Garibaldi – Milwaukee, WI
10/26/2025 Reggies Music Joint – Chicago, IL
10/28/2025 MiniBar – Kansas City, MO
10/29/2025 89th Street – Oklahoma City, OK
10/30/2025 Tumbleroot Brewery And Distillery – Santa Fe, NM
10/31/2025 Ground Zero Studios – Phoenix, AZ
11/01/2025 The Griffin – Las Vegas, NV
BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS has quietly sharpened their attack since emerging in 2010. A series of fan favorite releases bulldozed the way for 2023’s Rejecting Obliteration. Beyond praise from Everything Is Noise, Knotfest, Echoes And Dust, and more, Distorted Sound awarded the latter a 9/10 rating going on to promise, “Strap yourselves in, it’s quite the ride.” Invisible Oranges touted Rejecting Obliteration among “The Best Heavy Metal Of 2023 So Far,” while Metalsucks highlighted the collective as one of “Five New Zealand Metal Bands You Should Know.” Moreover, they have clocked over one million total streams and counting.
Throughout 2024, they carefully pieced together The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes Me. For the first time, the musicians took the reins and self-produced the LP. The addition of guitarist Dan Hayston and drummer Anthony Coota also infused a rush of new blood into the creative process. Additionally, they tapped Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Animals As Leaders) to handle mixing and mastering.
“After the cathartic journey that was Rejecting Obliteration,” recalls guitarist Stuart Henley-Minchington, “I really wanted to go down a different path musically. I was excited to dive into heavier territory. I wanted to take everything we had done before up notch. I almost see this musically as a continuation from Nightmare Withdrawals while maintaining the grandiose of Rejecting Obliteration. With the addition of Anthony on drums and Dan on guitar, I knew we were going to be able to push this into territory we had never been. Forrester Savell tipped it over the edge to something that is truly special and quite frankly, sonically devastating. We broke the intensity dial with this album.”
“Stace Fifield is one of the best vocalists in metal right now… Dude is fucking beastly with it, you can practically hear each and every vein churn blood in his head when he screams, so much so that it makes you wish there was a word for something more intense than a scream… one of the best metal albums I’ve heard this year.” – Everything Is Noise
“From bursts of atonal tapping (think Cytotoxin or Beneath The Massacre) to post-metal melodies, The Hardest Thing About Being God Is That No One Believes… defies expectations, logic, and sanity.” – Toilet Ov Hell
“Far from simply following in the footsteps of its predecessor, this album asserts itself as a confident step forward, proving the band’s ability to innovate while deepening their voice within extreme metal.” – Heavy Music HQ
“…a constant tension-inducing blast of dissonant, progressive, technical death metal. It moves like gears in a complex machine, each modicum of movement is precise, accurate, brutally efficient, stick your fingers inside and you’ll pull back stumps. It’s controlling and merciless, like choking somebody out and bringing them back only to choke them out again, over and over.” – Apanthropy
“And the winner for longest combination of band name and album title goes to… This album is anything but a joke. Sure, the riffs may make you smirk with appreciation, but the crushing breakdowns will soon wipe the smile off your face. The NZ bludgeoners have entered new territory with a concept album about the obsession, delusion and violence of someone consumed with unrequited love.” – Metal Mance
“You begin the record with a grimace from the intensity, but end with a shiver and a feeling like you’ve been emptied out. Don’t sleep on this one.” – Metal Digest
BLINDFOLDED AND LED TO THE WOODS:
Stace Fifield – vocals
Stuart Henley-Minchington – guitars, synths
Dan Hayston – guitars, synths
Nick Smith – bass
Anthony Coota – drums, percussion
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