Hungary's post-doom artist The Devil's Trade has unveiled "The Sleep That Dragged You Away", the powerful new single taken from its upcoming album, Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép, due on 7 November via Pelagic Records.

The Devil's Trade mastermind Dávid Makó comments: "'The Sleep That Dragged You Away' is the hardest and therefore the most liberating song of my life so far. It was my first experience of failure as a songwriter and singer. The writing process itself was a near nervous breakdown experience, and then I completely broke down during the recording. I had to withdraw and seriously consider the possibility of giving up. This song is closely connected to the prophecy in 'Dear Mother While', heard on Those Miles We Walked Alone, which was released eleven years ago. It deals with one of the most defining childhood traumas of my life and the most defining trauma of my adult life so far. It has become a real cliché that music can have a therapeutic effect, and I usually avoid that term, but in this case, it is a truly cathartic processing every time I listen to or perform it".

Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép, translated as "there is no uncontaminated beauty", is a record forged in grief and the unflinching confession. Fans of The Devil's Trade will immediately recognise Makó's signature elements: the deep, rugged baritone, the uncanny ability to transmit raw emotion and melodies drenched in melancholia. With his fifth studio album, however, Makó reclaims the heaviness of his early years, pushing his sound into new, atmospheric territory. "Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép is much darker and heavier and more complex than anything I have done", says Makó.

Working within a larger, more dynamic canvas, Makó's confessional power is met with metal-wrought anguish, reborn as an intimate, haunting journey toward authenticity. Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép is an elegy to his late mother. "Between the death of my mother and the birth of my son, we only had two weeks", explains Makó, and this complexity of emotion is felt in every beat and breath of the album. Survival, suffering, isolation, the endless human turmoil that hangs over our shared and personal grief. All this is expressed defiantly, through a voice that is devastatingly vulnerable and resilient.

While The Devil's Trade remains a deeply personal, largely self-driven project, Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép also reflects the input of key collaborators. "Just like with (previous album) Vidékek vannak idebenn, my old friend Gaspar Binder helped me write and record the drums and I wrote and played everything else. Szabolcs Szűcs, our local legend engineered the album and my best friend Márton Szabó helped us as a producer, or I love to use the term: musical conscience. This time I dared to ask another friend of mine, Nikita Kampard (Der Weg Einer Freiheit) to be the mastering engineer and it makes me so grateful that he said yes", states Makó.

Nincs Szennyezetlen Szép is not an easy listen, nor was it meant to be. It is a sincerely painful document of mourning and the myriad of emotions that grip us, from bitter rage to catatonic sadness. It is a testament to the resilience found in surviving and continuing through all, a reminder that "there is no uncontaminated beauty". Link