Following a number of independent releases and records issued through a series of smaller imprints, Chicago/Baltimore drone and metal experimentalists Locrian have announced they've teamed up with iconic heavy music imprint Relapse Records to deliver their next set, Return to Annihilation. The band's next effort arrives on CD, double-LP and digitally June 25 in North America (June 21 in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux and Finland, and June 24 in the rest of the world).
A press release notes that the band tracked the two-part concept album with Greg Norman (Pelican, Russian, Circles, Serena Maneesh) at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago.
Sonically, the set is said to be influenced by prog works like Genesis' 1974 masterpiece The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, as well as the multi-part songwriting styles of King Crimson and Yes. Thematically, Return to Annihilation was inspired by sci-fi writer Samuel Delaney Dhalgren and "borrows extensively" from German critic Walter Benjamin's unfinished "Arcades Project."
As lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Terrence Hannum explained in a statement: "Our story is about a cataclysm that changes the world and all manner of perception in two parts. I would say, the real and the perceived. And it is all told to you through a narrator, one who you cannot tell if he is asleep or dreaming or sleepwalking through this shifting landscape."
Song samples have yet to arrive, but you can view the tracklisting for the metaphysical cycle down below.
Return to Annihilation:
Part I
1. Eternal Return
2. A Visitation From the Wrath of Heaven
3. Two Moons
4. Return to Annihilation
a. Into One Light
b. Anathemata
c. All Mineral in Upheaval
Part II
5. Exiting the Hall of Vapor and Light
6. Panorama of Mirror
7. Obsolete Elegies
a: Isostasy
b: Digression of Air
c: Hydriotaphia
d: In Felsic Splendor
A press release notes that the band tracked the two-part concept album with Greg Norman (Pelican, Russian, Circles, Serena Maneesh) at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago.
Sonically, the set is said to be influenced by prog works like Genesis' 1974 masterpiece The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, as well as the multi-part songwriting styles of King Crimson and Yes. Thematically, Return to Annihilation was inspired by sci-fi writer Samuel Delaney Dhalgren and "borrows extensively" from German critic Walter Benjamin's unfinished "Arcades Project."
As lyricist/multi-instrumentalist Terrence Hannum explained in a statement: "Our story is about a cataclysm that changes the world and all manner of perception in two parts. I would say, the real and the perceived. And it is all told to you through a narrator, one who you cannot tell if he is asleep or dreaming or sleepwalking through this shifting landscape."
Song samples have yet to arrive, but you can view the tracklisting for the metaphysical cycle down below.
Return to Annihilation:
Part I
1. Eternal Return
2. A Visitation From the Wrath of Heaven
3. Two Moons
4. Return to Annihilation
a. Into One Light
b. Anathemata
c. All Mineral in Upheaval
Part II
5. Exiting the Hall of Vapor and Light
6. Panorama of Mirror
7. Obsolete Elegies
a: Isostasy
b: Digression of Air
c: Hydriotaphia
d: In Felsic Splendor
