It’s often the most difficult challenges that force a musician to grow artistically. For Lacrimas Profundere, one of the most innovative and successful German dark metal bands of our time, their latest studio album, How To Shroud Yourself With Night, was primarily about the implicit burden imposed by their 2019 hit record Bleeding The Stars, whose success had indirectly raised huge expectations.
Who wouldn’t be tempted to flirt with a sequel to that success story? “For me, it was about liberating myself from the pressure to succeed and about trying to raise the bar, staying ahead of the game, challenging myself and staying true to ourselves, instead of playing it safe and writing some kind of ‘Bleeding Part II’,” explains guitarist, band founder and main composer Oliver Nikolas Schmid, who once again found invaluable support in his brother and lyricist Christopher Schmid:
“The new material sounds fresh, wicked, surprising and more passionate than ever before. It’s also the second chapter with our singer Julian, who has inspired us and played a major part in the creation of the album,” Schmid continues. “We understand what he likes and have broken away from old thought patterns and ways of doing things. Never before have we been such a tight unit, always ready to expand our own sound. That’s precisely why How To Shroud Yourself With Night has turned into our most spirited work by far.”
Like Bleeding The Stars, How To Shroud Yourself With Night was produced by Kristian ‘Kohle’ Kohlmannslehner at his Kohlekeller Studios in Seeheim and mastered by Tom Porcell at the Limetree Studios. The atmospheric, deep black cover artwork was designed by Indonesian artist Bahrull Marta and underlines the songs’ dense atmosphere and great depth of focus that supports the actual theme of the album: the desire to simply disappear, to be invisible and not have to deal with yourself and the outside world anymore.
Schmid: “Each song on this album deals with that theme. It’s about shadows, about darkness and mystical objects which combine the unique power of “nothingness”.
How To Shroud Yourself With Night sees them throw their oppressive veil of melancholy into the dark night and reveal the beauty that’s inherent in bleak despondency. They accompany the listener into the gloom with doomy riffs and mournful melodic guitar and keyboard passages rich in atmosphere. Well, there’s not much to add to this precise assessment.
How To Shroud Yourself With Night will be released on August 26 via SPV/Steamhammer in the following configurations:
- CD DigiPak (incl. poster)
- LP, 140g, cristallo vinyl, printed inner sleeves
- Download / Streaming
Pre-order here.
- Exclusive CD/LP Bundle with a T-shirt only at the Steamhammer shop
Pre-order here.
The first single, "A Cloak Woven Of Stars", will be released next week.
Tracklisting:
"Wall Of Gloom"
"A Cloak Woven Of Stars"
"Nebula"
"In A Lengthening Shadow"
"The Curtain Of White Silence"
"Unseen"
"The Vastness Of Infinity"
"To Disappear In You"
"An Invisible Beginning"
"Shroud Of Night"
