In the new issue of Classic Rock, Evil Blizzard’s new album Everybody Come To Church is described as “designed to be repellant to the bovine majority, but if the world’s going to burn, it comes as a perfect soundtrack.” The follow-up to 2013’s The Dangers Of Evil Blizzard, it’s released tomorrow. We asked the band to explain what the hell is going on inside these demented, chaotic, terrifying songs.
Stream the full album below.
ARE YOU EVIL?
A soap opera of manipulation and isolation. A tale of personal limitations and crumbling moral standards. Musically, this song was ‘unwritten’ rather than written: one of the reasons we use four basses and not guitars is the harsh writing discipline this enforces. We have no choice but to strip away any excess to leave space for the four basses to ‘work’; to tear off the flesh and just leave the bones of the riff. A brutal and caustic song; this is as close to a ‘pop’ song as we’d ever like to get.
It also includes the album title which was given to us by a 6 year old. “You should call your next album ‘Everybody Come To Church’”. Can you repeat that into this phone please?!? And that’s the voice that starts the album. Fits the mood and lyrical content of ‘Are You Evil?’ perfectly, it just slotted into place.
**STUPID PEOPLE
**The soundtrack to the Western world hurtling ego-first into the sea. As simple, immediate and disposable as 99% of contemporary culture.
BOW DOWN AND PRAY
A lullaby for naughty children of all ages. Subservience, paranoia and desperation. Musically this was intended to capture to the simplicity and repetition of Kraftwerk or Neu!, but got dragged into the dirt of the 21st Century. Badly.
SPREAD THE FEAR
If they keep waving shiny flags in the distance, we’ll never notice what’s happening under our noses. A departure from the usual ‘poly-gumbo double doom’ sound; sparse and minimal, this shows a different section of our record collections. We wanted a little more variety on this album in terms of mood and tempo.
SACRIFICE
The first ever Evil Blizzard song and a standard at every gig since. Originally recorded for the debut album it was withheld as the original was deemed too weak. A different version was released on Rocket Recordings’ Collisions EP with a video directed by acclaimed French artist Anne Aylies. For this album recording we were adamant to develop the song further than the single, using sequencers and samples over the ‘live’ recording which we played to a click. Our most complex recording to date.
BALLOON
Just let go of your dreams. They’ll never happen. Staggering swagger that, as usual with Blizzard, descends into chaos.
LAUGHING GAS
Written pretty much in one take as you hear it. Raw and raucous, this has a chorus that doffs its cap to our more commercial sensibilities. While still sounding horrible, obviously.
WATCHING
A song that has evolved and fermented at gigs over the past year and came to perfect fruition in the studio. When we finished the take we all just looked at each other with our mouths open. ‘Please say the tape was rolling?…’
We are watching you. So behave.
Order Everybody Come To Church.
Tour dates:
Oct 10: The Great British Alternative Weekend, Butlins Skegness
Oct 15: The Donkey Bar, Leicester
Oct 17: Bumper, Liverpool
Oct 24: Georgian Theatre, Stockton
Oct 30: The Hairy Dog, Derby
Oct 31: Blitz, Preston (Halloween album launch)
Nov 11: Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
Nov 27: Wagon & Horses, Birmingham
Nov 28: The Barfly, Camden w/ Bad Guys
Dec 19: The Academy, Manchester
