U.S. progressive metal pioneers and innovators PSYCHOTIC WALTZ return in full original lineup with their highly anticipated fifth studio album and first new music in 23 years. Titled "The God-Shaped Void", the upcoming album and InsideOut Music debut will be released on February 14. The official video for the disc's latest single, "All The Bad Men", can be seen below (clip created by Costin Chioreanu of Twight13Media). Guitarist Dan Rock says of the song: "This started out from an old acoustic guitar riff I had back in the '90s before we broke up. Oddly, there is no acoustic guitar in it at all! It became the heavy verse riff. This song took a while to find the right notes for the lead and the proper groove for the drums. Early versions of this song make us cringe, so persistence obviously pays off, as it is one of our favorites from the album now." Says the band: "For the first video we trusted visual artist Costin Chioreanu to come up with something fittingly dark, dystopian, abstract and trippy. And he really outdid himself! Besides, an animated video is a lot better than looking at a bunch of middle-aged guys rocking out in an empty warehouse." The basic tracks for "The God-Shaped Void" were recorded with engineer Ulrich Wild in the band's hometown of San Diego, then the rest of the recordings at Studio D in Austria and finally the material was mixed/mastered by Jens Bogren (OPETH, DEVIN TOWNSEND, FATES WARNING) at Fascination Street Studios in Sweden. Artwork, seen below, was created by longtime visual partner Travis Smith (KATATONIA, RIVERSIDE, NEVERMORE). Rock stated: "First we'd like to thank all the fans who have supported us over the years. The new album would probably not exist if it were not for the good times and fan support we had on our reunion tours of Europe in 2011/2012. It really sunk in how cool I would be to make new music again, instead of just continually playing the first four albums. "With all of us living further apart, especially Devon, it was a much slower process than having all five of us in the same room like we used to. But times change, and the Internet helped quite a bit. Normally, Brian and I would come up with guitar parts at home, whether alone or together. Sometimes we would program a basic drum beat for Norm to latch on to the vibe that we were feeling, and some of those stayed, while others were greatly improved upon by his far superior drum skills. We took our time (obviously) and went one song at a time and rehearsed it and recorded it in the jam room until we were musically happy with it. Then I would upload the individual tracks for Devon to download in his home studio so that he could remix it, and really see what each guy was doing. He was able to add vocals, make edits and rearrange parts that made for sense for him as a singer, and then send it back to us to review, retrack or punch in if needed… we did all of our pre-production mixes that way." He continued: "I think Devon did a really great job considering the process, but we all wanted to bring in a professional set of outside ears with more experience. We were fortunate enough to have Ulrich Wild come down to San Diego and do all the basic tracking in a little-known local studio called Rarefied. Even better, Jens Bogren had an opening in his schedule at Fascination Street Studios and was able to mix and master it for us. And none of this would have been possible if InsideOut Music didn't have the faith in us that they did to release a new record after such a long time. Many thanks go out to everybody who made it possible after all these years. We hope you find it worth the wait!" Re-releases of the entire PSYCHOTIC WALTZ catalog will follow through InsideOut Music later in 2020 and next live activities in support of the new album will be revealed soon too. PSYCHOTIC WALTZ is (left to right in photo by Axel Jusseit): Dan Rock - guitar, keys Devon Graves - vocals Ward Evans - bass Norman Leggio - drums Brian McAlpin - guitar
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