Avatar have announced a brand new concept album titled Feathers & Flesh to be released on Friday, May 13, 2016 via Entertainment One (eOne) in North America and Canada and Another Century overseas. The new release will be the band’s highly anticipated followup to Hail The Apocalypse released in 2014, which cracked the Billboard Top 200 for the first time in the band’s career.
The aim is set higher, further and deeper than ever before for Avatar. Not only is this concept album their most extensive work to date, showing the widest range of any of their albums, it also contains a story too extensive for any booklet, so they made a book. A fully illustrated 60 page, 109 verse poem hardcover book. The physical album pre order, book, and exclusive merchandise will be available directly from the band March 17th. Check out the preview at avatarmetal.com.
The band is releasing their first song off the record in a very familiar way, a music video. “For The Swarm” can be seen below. Directed by longtime collaborator and director Johan Carlén, the video pegs itself firmly into the upper echelon of stunning visual masterpieces the band has grown accustomed to producing.
Feathers & Flesh was recorded in Germany, Finland and Sweden in December 2015 with producer extraordinaire Sylvia Massy (System of a Down, Tool, Red Hot Chili Peppers). “Avatar is an amazing band,” said Massy, adding, “The singer has the wild energy and charisma I love, and the players are relentless. The album we’re making is an epic. Each song powerfully stands on it’s own, but is only a piece of a larger story. This album is the project I’ve been dreaming about for years!”
The music is as always, rooted in the extreme, with plenty of melodic sensibility and a lust for experimentation. There is a love for intense double bass drumming, riffing and shredding of timeless dimensions alongside rough edges, slow grooves and epic storytelling for the ages. The idea is that as the band digs deeper, the fists will be held up higher. The end result is a modern metal album with all the ruthlessness and power one could ask for handled with a loving songwriter’s hand, inspired by The Beatles and Queen.
Feathers & Flesh Track Listing:
1. Regret
2. House of Eternal Hunt
3. The Eagle has Landed
4. New Land
5. Tooth, Beak & Claw
6. For The Swarm
7. Fiddler’s Farewell
8. One More Hill
9. Black Waters
10. Night Never Ending
11. Pray the Sun Away
12. When The Snow Lies Red
13. Raven Wine
14. Sky Burial
