Senses Fail 'Pull the Thorns from Your Heart' on New LP

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Apr 29, 2015

Everything seems to be in working order for long-running post-hardcore crew Senses Fail, who have announced that they have a new album release on the horizon. The New Jersey band will issue their Pull the Thorns from Your Heart, which will be their first full-length for Pure Noise Records, on June 30.

The group's sixth studio LP album follows a recent split 7-inch with Man Overboard, also released through Pure Noise, but it will be Senses Fail's first full-sized outing since 2013's Renacer. The record features 11 new tunes, which a press release explains were inspired by vocalist Buddy Nielsen's life-changing relationship with Buddhism. The PR adds that Nielsen's "devout dedication to Vipassana meditation and studies of Buddhist teachings have allowed him to find peace within himself, embrace his differences and eventually find comfort in his newfound identification as queer."

"This record is the complete documentation of my transformative spiritual experience from the darkness to the light," the singer said in a statement. "It is the completion of a journey I have been on since I started making music when I was 17. I want this record to be more than just words and music but a blueprint for how through contemplative practice you can come to love, grow and blossom out of the muck of life and into the light. It is not intended to motivate in steps or exact teachings but empower. It is above all a personal story of struggle and realization."

Pull the Thorns from Your Heart is arranged in four "non-sequential" acts that are named after Buddhist concepts (Annica & Sacca, Tisarana, Maransati and Brahmaviharas), with the band's sonic approach apparently hitting quite a bit harder than the enlightened lyrical content.

"I wanted the heaviness and anger of the record to not be matched with equal words of despair but words that show growth and change," Nielsen explained. "Most music that represents change and growth is calmer and less abrasive but I wanted to show that friction is what helps spur action. Without the friction, we wouldn't want to change, we would be content."

Down below, you can check out the first hard-edged preview, " The Importance of the Moment of Death," in a cake-smashing, birthday-party themed video, which comes via Noisey.

Pull the Thorns from Your Heart:

1. The Three Marks Of Existence

2. Carry The Weight

3. The Courage Of An Open Heart

4. Wounds

5. Take Refuge

6. Surrender

7. Dying Words

8. The Importance Of The Moment of Death

9. Pull The Thorns From Your Heart

10. We All Are Returning Home

11. My Fear Of An Unlived Life

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