Photo by Chris Klump
Today marks the release of Torture World, the seething new EP from Boston’s GREAT AMERICAN GHOST, out now on MNRK Heavy!
Produced by Will Putney (A Day To Remember, Knocked Loose, The Amity Affliction), who handled the band’s critically-adored 2019’s Power Through Terror full-length, with Torture World, the band directs old-school hardcore wrath at hypocrisy, apathy, and self-loathing, delivered in a dark cloud of relentlessly bludgeoning riffs.
In celebration of the release, today the band unveils a visualizer for the track “Womb,” now playing at Metal Injection.” The track captures the band at their heaviest yet, tearing through instrumental technicality and breathing new life into the deathcore scene. Comments vocalist Ethan Harrison, “If you don’t bang your head to ‘Womb,’ you must actually be dead.”
Stream “Womb” at THIS LOCATION.
View the band’s recently released video for opening track, “Kingmaker,” at THIS LOCATION.
Torture World is available on CD, LP, cassette, and digital formats. Find ordering options at THIS LOCATION.
GREAT AMERICAN GHOST is in the midst of their US tour supporting Fit For An Autopsy! The month-long journey, which commenced on January 5th in Columbus, Ohio, runs through February 12th in New York City. Additional support is being provided by Ingested, Signs Of The Swarm, and labelmates, Enterprise Earth. See all remaining dates below.
GREAT AMERICAN GHOST w/ Fit For An Autopsy, Ingested, Enterprise Earth, Signs Of The Swarm [remaining dates]:
1/20/2022 Brick By Brick – San Diego, CA
1/22/2022 Nile Theater – Mesa, AZ
1/24/2022 Come And Take It Live – Austin, TX
1/25/2022 Warehouse Live – Houston, TX
1/26/2022 Gas Monkey Bar & Grill – Dallas, TX
1/27/2022 89th Street – Oklahoma City, OK
1/28/2022 Growlers – Memphis, TN
1/29/2022 Red Flag – St. Louis, MO
1/30/2022 The Basement East – Nashville, TN
2/01/2022 Crowbar – Tampa, FL
2/02/2022 Respectables – West Palm Beach, FL
2/03/2022 The Haven – Winterpark, FL
2/04/2022 The Masquerade – Atlanta, GA
2/05/2022 Blind Tiger – Greensboro, NC
2/07/2022 Crafthouse – Pittsburgh, PA
2/08/2022 Sound Stage – Baltimore, MD
2/09/2022 The Foundry – Philadelphia, PA
2/10/2022 The Palladium – Worcester, MA
2/11/2022 Webster Underground – Hartford, CT
2/12/2022 The Gramercy Theatre – New York, NY
Since inception, GREAT AMERICAN GHOST has unleashed a steady stream of furious music. The group Metal Injection calls, “always hateful, always pissed,” steadily built a devoted following with the bleak and punishing Everyone Leaves (2015), Hatred Stems From The Seed (2017), the Don’t Come Back EP (2016), and Power Through Terror (2019).
Even as the worldwide shutdown and personal adversities big and small threatened to derail the band, perseverance ultimately prevailed, resulting in the four-song Torture World EP poised to take the band’s vicious bile in new directions.
“We were excited about Power Through Terror and ready to hit the road as much as humanly possible,” frontman Ethan Harrison recalls. “We had a bunch of touring ready to roll when the record came out in February. Then we were locked down in March. It was a really long eighteen months for us, like most people. There were a lot of points where really bad things happened, and we thought, ‘Well, maybe we just don’t want to do the band anymore.’ My mental health was going downward. We had a really horrible year, honestly.”
But as the light began to creep in toward the end of the tunnel, with plans for shows and even touring on the horizon, Harrison and his bandmates began to feel some glimmers of hope. “The conversations started to feel more real. It gave me a feeling that I hadn’t had in a long time. I missed the band even more than I realized.”
Early releases tackled feelings of hopelessness, thoughts of suicide, and bitterness about broken relationships with naked aggression. On Power Through Terror, Harrison turned his poison pin outward as well, going after government complicity in sex trafficking and abuse; a friend’s debilitating struggle with alcoholism; the fear of failure that keeps so many bound up in apathy. Torture World tackles several issues with urgency and passion, not the least of which is the struggle for equality and the resulting social unrest magnified in recent years. “As a white cisgender male, I’m not in a position to say that I am oppressed. It’s not my story to tell,” Harrison cautions. “But I have a huge problem with the disparity that occurs inside of this civilization that we occupy.”
“Torture World has a dual meaning,” he continues. “Some songs on the EP are extremely political and there are some extremely personal songs. Both things bleed into each other.”
It’s an approach to the lyrical side of the band that continues to apply to their music. Since the first time a punk rocker palm-muted a guitar, there’s been a debate about what constitutes “true” hardcore, crossover, thrash, metalcore, ad nauseam. GREAT AMERICAN GHOST is comfortably beyond that conversation. “I’m so sick of the whole subgenre thing,” says Harrison. “We’ve always been in this middle ground. Some people who listen to metal don’t see us as a metal band. We’ve never been a straight-up hardcore band. So, we don’t really care. I only care whether or not people get it. As long as they get it, or it changes them or touches them emotionally in some way? Call us whatever you want.”
“It comes at you pretty hard, and pretty fast… It’s the kind of song that your neighbors really ought to hear, and maybe even feel depending on your sound system.” – Metal Injection on “Kingmaker”
“Death metal, hardcore, metalcore, black metal… it all merges into a cohesive work of impressive and sadistic force.” — Distorted Sound
“…beautifully severe….” — Metal Talk on “Womb”
“Utterly unstoppable as they lurch from skin-melting rage to skull-bludgeoning sludgy breakdowns, GREAT AMERICAN GHOST is one of those bands who demonstrate how to perfectly meld together the fury of hardcore and the neck-snapping aggression of metal.” — V13
“…a colossal sonic experience.” – Scream Blast Repeat
“A raging and snarling beast, Torture World is a frothing mania of head-crushing, body-beating and soul-rendering hardcore heaviness.” – Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life
“Torture World stomps the gas pedal hard at the onset of ‘Kingmaker’ and doesn’t let up, with percussion that swings at the listener’s head like a sledge hammer, and dense, disastrously heavy bass that amplifies the low end in every lurid, flesh-rending breakdown… the band’s penchant for malicious metalcore is abundant, with a no-holds barred approach that combines gnashing, jarring drumming with scathing leads and spine-shrinking breakdowns.” – New Transcendence
GREAT AMERICAN GHOST:
Ethan Harrison – vocals
Niko Gasparrini – guitar
Davier Perez – drums
Grayson Stewart – guitar
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