Californian Amarok has announced its sophomore full-length, Resilience, to come out on 28 June via Vulture Print, just days before embarking on its North American tour with Mizmor.
Amarok is an epic metal quartet that combines the sustained drones and driving rhythms of doom/funeral doom metal with intricate melodic passages, layered guitar harmonies, and blasting percussion of black metal. The band takes its name from the giant wolf cryptid of Inuit mythology - a creature capable of ripping a person's soul from their body, symbolizing their powerful wall-of-sound aesthetic and signalling the band's connection to the primal forces of nature.
Amarok's eponymous debut EP, a monumental work of funeral doom, was released in 2012. In the following years, Amarok collaborated with friends in the extreme metal community on a series of split releases, issuing split albums with Enth and Pyramido in 2013 and a split with Hell in 2014. In 2018, the band released its massive Devoured via Translation Loss Records, cementing its position in the West Coast metal scene and reaching a spectrum of listeners with its unique sound.
Each record explores different facets of Amarok's nature-inspired themes, with every epic song representing a chapter in a story of transcendence. These movements are purposefully marked in a continuous roman-numeral numbering sequence. Resilience, the band's upcoming concept album, continues this introspective journey with an honest meditation on loss, expressing the pain of climate disaster, existential dread, and personal loss alongside the steadfast struggle to overcome it.
Resilience was recorded and mixed by Greg Wilkinson at Earhammer Studios (High On Fire, Necrot, Vastum), mastered by James Plotkin (Khanate, Sunn O))), Isis), and completed with cover art hand painted by Adam Burke, and photography by Michelle Camy and the band members. The album features guest vocals on "Charred" by Dave Edwardson (Neurosis) and on "Penance" by A.L.N. (Mizmor), and cello on "Ascension" played by Jaed and recorded by Chris Keene at Cutters Cathedral. Link
Resilience tracklist:
1. Charred (X)
2. Ascension (XI)
3. Interlude
4. Penance (XII)
5. Legacy (XIII)
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"This time we're trying not to complicate things too much. We want to have a simple message, but that doesn't mean there will be fewer arrangements or less songwriting..." - Pedro Paixão
"There were already bands doing small illustrations of symphonic metal, and I was thinking, why doesn't someone do this all the time?" - Christofer Johnsson
"We're fucking vampires, you know? The desire to stay young forever is always there. But alienation — that definitely comes from being a non‑human person." - Lee Margot
"There's much more detail in our music now than 20 years ago. It's also much easier nowadays because you can do many things at home." - Morten Lybecker
