Shihad have announced the release of their brand new album, FVEY (pronounced, Five Eyes), on Friday, August 15. Recorded in December last year at Auckland’s legendary York Street Studio with Killing Joke frontman, Jaz Coleman at the production helm, FVEY sounds unlike anything Shihad have done before.
When frontman Jon Toogood, drummer Tom Larkin, bass payer Karl Kippenberger and guitarist Phil Knight reconvened in Melbourne during the winter of 2013 for a lock down writing session it was a natural move to conjure up a brutal set of songs. “Total brutality from start to finish,” says Larkin.
“Because,” says Toogood, “we make really good heavy metal and heavy rock and we know how to make it sound really big.” A sentiment that is marked by the album’s first single, the relentless and heavyThink You’re So Free.
According to Toogood, injustice is a strong lyrical motif throughout the record. “I just wanted to talk about the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the ugly conclusion of free market capitalism when it goes crazy without any constraints and how it’s a soulless and selfish, disgusting void. My intention for the record was to illuminate that for myself and just to say what was in my head rather than grumbling about it on Facebook.”
Not that he wants to be a poster boy for the underdog and standing up for injustice. “This is a personal record for me and I don’t have the answers. I’m still working things out.”
FVEY will be released in a number of different formats – an 11-track standard album (available on CD and digitally); a limited CD only edition featuring the standard album and four bonus tracks; an iTunes exclusive version featuring the standard album, a bonus track and the ‘Think You’re So Free’ music video; and a 180g double LP vinyl with 11 tracks.
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