Photo credit: Chris Klump
‘Kingmaker’ streaming now via MNRK Heavy
Torture World EP available January 21st 2022
Boston’s Great American Ghost have released their first single, ‘Kingmaker’, from their upcoming EP. Torture World will be released 21st January 2022 via MNRK Heavy.
Check out the new single and video for ‘Kingmaker‘, premiered via Metal Injection, here: https://metalinjection.net/video/great-american-ghost-throws-down-on-new-song-kingmaker
Pre-order the Torture World EP here: https://tortureworld.com/
The metallic but angular, sharply percussive EP opener showcases the band’s attention to detail in crafting instrumentation, carefully weaving through choruses, breakdowns, and bludgeoning riffs. Musing over their mutual love for Nine Inch Nails and industrial metal, vocalist Ethan Harrison explains the influence it had over Torture World‘s first single ‘Kingmaker’:
“‘Kingmaker’ is a song I wrote at the height of the QAnon hysteria. It was my own observation on the kind of people that allow something so clearly based in racism and bigotry, that has been propagated for hundreds of years just to be repackaged and resold as something new and original, to fuel their every choice and how much that disgusts me. Somethings should be rejected on their face.”
Produced by Will Putney (A Day to Remember, Knocked Loose, The Amity Affliction), who also handled the band’s critically-adored 2019 LP Power Through Terror, Great American Ghost use Torture World to direct old-school hardcore wrath at hypocrisy, apathy, and self-loathing, delivered in a dark cloud of relentlessly bludgeoning riffs. The EP’s title track blends atmospheric melodies with unrelenting heaviness, maneuvering swiftly between classic death metal, uplifting hardcore, and double bass-fuelled fury. ‘Womb’ is as fast and severe as anything originating from the frozen forests of Scandinavia, swinging wildly back and forth between blackened death and slow sludge. ‘Death Forgives No One’ concludes the proceedings with a progressive bend, equal parts driving and haunting with an almost esoteric quality beneath it all.
The triumphant post-pandemic return in front of 10,000 enthusiastic people at The Palladium in Worcester, Massachusetts, was a testament to just how successfully GREAT AMERICAN GHOST connect through their steady stream of furious music. Dubbed as being “always hateful, always pissed,” the band steadily built a devoted following with the bleak and punishing Everyone Leaves (2015), Hatred Stems From The Seed (2017), 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,” 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.”
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 – Niko Gasparrini and Davier Perez – began to feel some glimmers of hope. “The conversation 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 realised. We didn’t have any pressure or expectations in terms of how Torture World should sound. We did what we wanted and this is what came from it. There’s a larger scope of sound happening than on our earlier releases. Bells, percussion, a lot of extra instrumentation. And the riffs are still there.”
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, 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’m oppressed. It’s not my story to tell,” Harrison cautions. “But I have a huge problem with the disparity that occurs inside of this civilisation that we occupy. Torture World has a duel meaning. 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 as ‘true’ hardcore, crossover, thrash, metalcore, ad nauseam. Great American Ghost are comfortably beyond that conversation. “I’m so sick of the whole subgenre thing,” explains 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.”
Great American Ghost are:
Ethan Harrison– vocals
Niko Gasparrini– guitar
Davier Perez– drums
Great American Ghostonline:
http://www.facebook.com/GreatAmericanGhost
http://www.instagram.com/greatamericanghost
http://www.twitter.com/GAGBOSTON
MNRKonline:
www.mnrkheavy.com
www.facebook.com/mnrkheavy
www.twitter.com/mnrkheavy
www.instagram.com/mnrk_heavy
Torture World Tracklisting:
1. Kingmaker
2. Torture World
3. Womb
4. Death Forgives No One