Rising Norwegian metal band HYPERMASS has announced plans to release their awaited debut full-length album, “Empyrean,” on June 3rd. Today, the band has revealed a new single, “Behind The Leviathan,” which is now available as a lyric video and on all streaming services.
Commenting on the new track, guitarist Thomas Pedersen states: “This track is the black sheep on the album. Usually, you can find a sense of humor and irony in most of our songs – but this one ended up being the darkest song we have made to date. We wanted a grandiose atmosphere with choir/orchestration and a slow crushing tempo, set to a structure that leads you on a journey. The lyrics were written by our good buddy Lasse, and they fit the vibe oh so well. It’s definitely the furthest we have strayed from our usual soundscape.”
“Behind The Leviathan” is the second single to be released from “Empyrean,” following the devastating track “The Degenerate Strain“. The two songs set the scene for the sheer carnage that’s in store from HYPERMASS’ impending debut.
Commenting on the record’s overarching themes, the band says: “Lyrically, the album is a study in misanthropy and extremist thought. There is a rising scent of alienation festering on the fringes of contemporary culture. A restlessness, brewing like a phantom itch on a severed limb. We stand at the end of an age defined by its conscious deathwish for our self-constructed deities, and an unconscious effort to replace them with nothing. Still unable to suppress our instinct for communion, we erect statues in celebration of any momentary, passing fixation. Sick of the sight of brick and mortar we tear down our walls, only to put new ones in their place as we grow sick of the sight of whatever lies beyond them.
Without a unifying guiding compass – lost somewhere among the aisles of bargain bin scripture and bumper sticker philosophy – there will come a time when appetite for rebellion will have lost the features to distinguish it from a primal thirst for mere catharsis. There will be those whose thirst would tame an ocean.
As seasons pass, the harvest will reveal the nature of the alien seeds we’ve forced upon the soil. And the cages we’ve built will burst with the monsters we foster.”
