While Baptists vocalist Andrew Drury will be supplying the same sort of caustic, feral screams on the band's upcoming Bloodmines as he did on 2013's Bushcraft, the hardcore singer apparently set his mind on keeping his often ominous lyrics less oblique this time around.
"I think I wanted to be a bit less cryptic. I know it can be hard to understand what's going on in my lyrics sometimes if I don't give a spiel on each song saying exactly what I meant," Drury tells Exclaim! of his approach to the sophomore LP, delivered today (October 14) through Southern Lord. "This time I wanted to do a bit more finger pointing and make my cause known."
While Bushcraft featured an enigmatic mix of personal and societal grievances, Bloodmines refines Drury's scope to fixate on issues including homophobic politicians ("String Up"), the stigmatization of mental health ("Closed Ports"), and corporate exploitation of workers and natural resources ("Bloodmines"). "That's just stuff that affects my everyday life," the frontman notes.
Taking inspiration from his time as a social worker, "For Profit" has Drury taking aim at the business end of the foster care system. From his perspective, the lucrative aspect of housing troubled and in-need youth often comes at the expense of the minors themselves. He screams critically in the detuned, d-beat driven missive "There's cash to make in suffering / So estimate what we can take away to profit from this ward of state."
"That money could go towards making those kids' lives better but instead it's going into [the businesses'] pockets. The emergency group homes, it's a kid's last resort. It's basically the only place you can go," Drury, a foster parent himself, asserts. "I don't think that the general public knows the way that the system works, and that there are for-profit organizations that house these kids that are making [thousands] a kid, per month."
In addition to highlighting the issue on Bloodmines, Drury hints that he's working on a fuller investigation of the situation with a Vancouver-based journalist for a later date.
While Bloodmines lands today, a North American tour alongside labelmates Obliterations and Torch Runner also starts up this week. You'll find the details of the trip, which includes a stop at Vancouver's Biltmore Cabaret on October 25, over here.
Read more from our recent interview with Baptists here.
UPDATE: You can also now stream all of Bloodmines below.
"I think I wanted to be a bit less cryptic. I know it can be hard to understand what's going on in my lyrics sometimes if I don't give a spiel on each song saying exactly what I meant," Drury tells Exclaim! of his approach to the sophomore LP, delivered today (October 14) through Southern Lord. "This time I wanted to do a bit more finger pointing and make my cause known."
While Bushcraft featured an enigmatic mix of personal and societal grievances, Bloodmines refines Drury's scope to fixate on issues including homophobic politicians ("String Up"), the stigmatization of mental health ("Closed Ports"), and corporate exploitation of workers and natural resources ("Bloodmines"). "That's just stuff that affects my everyday life," the frontman notes.
Taking inspiration from his time as a social worker, "For Profit" has Drury taking aim at the business end of the foster care system. From his perspective, the lucrative aspect of housing troubled and in-need youth often comes at the expense of the minors themselves. He screams critically in the detuned, d-beat driven missive "There's cash to make in suffering / So estimate what we can take away to profit from this ward of state."
"That money could go towards making those kids' lives better but instead it's going into [the businesses'] pockets. The emergency group homes, it's a kid's last resort. It's basically the only place you can go," Drury, a foster parent himself, asserts. "I don't think that the general public knows the way that the system works, and that there are for-profit organizations that house these kids that are making [thousands] a kid, per month."
In addition to highlighting the issue on Bloodmines, Drury hints that he's working on a fuller investigation of the situation with a Vancouver-based journalist for a later date.
While Bloodmines lands today, a North American tour alongside labelmates Obliterations and Torch Runner also starts up this week. You'll find the details of the trip, which includes a stop at Vancouver's Biltmore Cabaret on October 25, over here.
Read more from our recent interview with Baptists here.
UPDATE: You can also now stream all of Bloodmines below.