Sacramento, California's CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE will release a new, self-titled album on October 1. The CD was entirely funded by fans via a Kickstarter campaign (raising over $15,000 within a month) and will be the band's first self-released effort. The new album follows the band's two highly regarded extreme metal releases, (2009's "When Legends Become Dust" and 2010's "Revenants") for Sumerian Records. While initially established in the metalcore scene, the new release finds the band further distancing themselves from the "core" tag and delving further into the technicality and brutality that defines death metal. While at a crossroad with their label, the band spent the better part of the past two years writing and demoing new material while deciding their future. The downtime actually ended up being beneficial as guitarist Jeff Morgan confides: "It took a while for us to finally get into the studio to master the tracks, but it ended up working out great for the album. The writing and re-fining process we put each song through helped ensure that this album was the best it could possibly be. Also, we were allowed the time without any outside pressure to really hone in on our roots and expand on them in new directions." Regarding lyrical and conceptual themes for the album, vocalist Mikey Powell says: "Our newest release started out as a full on concept about the apocalypse with the four horsemen as the main idea, but that quickly changed into a more or less non-concept specific approach. There are A LOT of different themes going on ranging from my love of video games ('Honor Guide Me!' is about war through the eyes of a Protoss Zealot from the game Starcraft) all the way through a very bad experience I had in my life that gave me a very bad case of anxiety issues that I will have for the rest of my life ('Into the Rabbit Hole'). I guess you could say that it's mostly about my life experiences from my childhood to issues in my life today. Vocally, I think it's my best work yet and I had a lot of fun trying to push my performance beyond past releases." Ultimately, deciding to release the album themselves, the band decided to pursue the crowdfunding option for album costs, unsure of what to expect. Speaking on the overwhelmingly positive outcome, Morgan says: "It was amazing to see the fans come through like that for us. There were a lot of people who donated above and beyond what they needed to and the majority of comments we received were so supportive. When things get difficult trying to keep a band going for such a long time, fans like this make it all feel worthwhile." In addition to Morgan and Powell, CONDUCTING FROM THE GRAVE features John Abernathy (guitar), Greg Donnelly (drums) and Jackson Jordan (bass).
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