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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"It's about humans; we are the high parasites. We feast on the earth and on all the things that the earth gives us. We don't just take a little bit, we take everything." - Aaron Stainthorpe
"I hope that through our music and our words, people can feel that connection between us and them, and feel a little bit better — or at least less alone." - Alessandro Belluccio
"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
"I'm quite obsessive, and when I work on music, I can overwork and get myself in trouble. I always had a breakdown when I finished an album, because I drove myself to the brink." - Mick Moss
