Armed For Apocalypse Shared Video For Lifeless

With many claiming Ritual Violence as this year’s heaviest album, Californian sludge metal crew Armed For Apocalypse have unleashed one more blast of relentless fury. New single ‘Lifeless’, which deals with the pain of the death of a loved one, has premiered alongside a new video in celebration of the album’s release, via CandlelightRecords.

Vocalist Nate Burman comments on the caustic new single: “Over the past few years it seemed like dealing with the death of a loved one was becoming way too frequent a thing. It was a lot to deal with and I wondered why it kept happening to me so often. The lyrics for lifeless are a bit personal. They follow a day in my life where I had to put down my dog. It was all the feelings I had holding him in my arms as he passed.”

New album Ritual Violence is an uncompromising aural onslaught and sees the band at their most aggressive. Both a product and expression of their never-die attitude, it’s the album Armed for Apocalypse always wanted to make, with the engineer they wanted to make it Kurt Ballou, God City (Converge, High On Fire, Every Time I Die ) and the label they wanted to partner with, Candlelight Records. Featuring guest appearances from Andreas Kisser (Sepultura) on track ‘Foredoomed’ and Trevor Phipps (Unearth) on ‘Suffer For A Living’, it is Armed for Apocalypse refined to its purest form: 0 percent frills,100 percent heavy riffs.

Forming in California in the aughts, Armed for Apocalypse quickly released 2009’s Defeat (Ironclad Recordings). That’s where they laid out their mission statement: we are going to tune low, play riffs, and make heavy metal that makes you bang your fucking head. Real amps turned up, real drums hit hard, no bullshit. 2013’s The Road Will End (Ironclad) complicated their thesis, the band experimenting with new structures and incorporating a broader sonic palette. But member changes and new life directions led to a challenging five years before their next release, 2018’s Palm Reader EP. Now, in 2022, they return more focused than ever with their most potent and unwavering album to date. Ritual Violence is eleven tracks of bludgeoning skullf*ckery; a record from a band who are confident in who they are, and what they want to do. And who won’t let anything get in the way of that. Not the years. Not the heartache. Not an industry that devalues its creators. Nothing.

Armed for Apocalypse has never done it the easy way. But on this latest record is a statement and a promise: they will do it their way.