Slasherwave outfit and recent Metal Blade Records signees, Gost, will release the thundering thirteen-track full-length, Prophecy, on March 8, today revealing the record's first video/single and pre-orders.
Gost exists in the dark crack between black metal and the most shadowy end of electronic music. Since the release of the Radio Macabre EP at the start of 2013, and the remorseless digital nightmare of their Skull debut album six months later, Texas-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and main-brain James Lollar has become an increasingly singular force in music. Far more aggressive and sinister than the synthwave he's often grouped with, Gost is a harsh and unique digital nightmare that takes the listener right into the heart of the abyss.
Now Gost returns with their sixth album, Prophecy. Unquestionably their most exhilarating and dangerous sounding work to date, Prophecy is a record that perfectly reflects the horror and grim anxieties of a world beset with religious and political overreach, and progress, "being rolled back to the fucking 1950s."
"It's about an imaginative fall of the Western civilization, the biblical end of the world - the rise of Satan and Armageddon," says Lollar. "In America, there's been a big rise of scared, reactive Christianity again, and almost like a re-emergence of the Satanic Panic. So it felt like an appropriate time to bring Satan back into things."
Recorded alone in Texas during a burst of creativity at the end of 2022, Prophecy is the perfect vessel for such things. Following the experimentation and more melodic touches of 2019's Valediction, Lollar says it also acts as something of a return to older roots, to recapture the spirit of Gost.
"When Valediction came out, COVID hit, and I guess people weren't so into art while the world was on its knees," he says. "I also wanted to reconnect with some of my older fans who maybe didn't feel that album so much. I wanted to go back in time and bring some of the older shit back, some of the older sounds."
In advance of the release of Prophecy, Gost has unveiled the first single, the record's title track, and its accompanying video (which includes intro track, "Judgement").
Elaborates Lollar, "With 'Prophecy,' I wanted to revisit some of the sounds of 'Possessor.' Rather than simply replicate those sounds I expanded upon them. I pushed the saturation and compression to their literal limits, resulting in some of the heaviest sounds I have yet to produce. I wanted to combine some classic EBM elements with my digital metal sound as well. This EBM influence can be heard throughout 'Prophecy.' Horror has been a huge aspect of my sound since day one and that theme is ever present on 'Prophecy,' through ratcheting strings and dreadful choir lines. 'Prophecy' expounds on the slasherwave genre I originally created with 'Behemoth.'"
Watch Gost's "Judgement / Prophecy" video below.
Prophecy will be available on CD, LP, and digital formats. Find pre-ordering options here.
Prophecy tracklisting:
"Judgment"
"Prophecy"
"Death In Bloom"
"Deceiver"
"Obituary"
"Temple Of Tears"
"Decadent Decay"
"Widow Song"
"Golgotha"
"Digital Death"
"Shelter"
"Through The Water"
"Leviathan"
"Judgement / Prophecy" video:
Gost is currently traversing North America supporting Katatonia on their Sky Void Of Stars tour. Additional support is being provided by SOM on select dates.
(Photo - Tracy Lollar)
