Los Angeles doom metal band Black Math Horseman will be making their comeback this fall.
Announced today, the band will unveil their new self-titled EP on October 21st via Profound Lore Records. The first single from the record titled "The Bough" comes with a music video co-directed by Travis Shinn and Jeremy Danger, which can be seen below.
Vocalist Sera Timms said this about the new song and EP:
"The essence of the album is overcoming a great enemy, a great adversarial force, and reaching a place of harmony that has never been found before. You go to a dark place and destroy relationships that you love, all based on ego. Eventually, you have nothing. And when you have nothing, you have to find a new way of doing things. That's where we're at now as a band and family, and that's also the theme of the record.
'The Bough' is essentially that moment when you realize you have been courting an illusion. You've put every bit of your heart and soul into courting this illusion, but when you realize that there's nothing behind it, you want to destroy everything - not only the illusion, but reality and yourself. It's that lightning bolt of clarity that comes through destruction - that's what the song is."
The self-titled EP follows Black Math Horseman's 2009 debut album Wyllt, which helped lead the band to appearances at the Roadburn and Primavera Sound festivals. The band quietly fell from the public eye following some internal issues with band members. Timms stated:
"When we came together initially as a band, we had no goals aside from seeing if we could make beautiful music together. We made a demo, which turned into an album because it was liked. And then we became a working band that was being asked to play shows and tours. But we had never discussed what the long-term goals of the band were. There became a schism between some members wanting to become a professional band and others wanting to remain in the creative center of the rehearsal space. Those disagreements led to the band dissolving."
In 2018, however, members reunited to discuss a potential reunion. In March 2020, the band were slated to open for YOB in Los Angeles, but lockdown scrapped those plans. Timms said this about getting the band back together:
"At first, the conversation was about how we were all in different places now, and could we even go back to being that band that we were? It feels like it's been a thousand years since we wrote that music. Since then, I'd gone in a very different direction and barely even listened to heavy music anymore. So, initially we just got back together as friends to see what would happen. Maybe we'd write completely different music now - and we were all open to that.
When we started jamming again, we didn't sound any different. We discovered that the music that comes from us four together is something that we have no control over. It just happens. It's a recipe that's beyond us."
Pre-orders for the self-titled EP can be made here.
Black Math Horseman tracklisting:
1. Black Math Horseman
2. Boar Domain
3. The Bough
4. Cypher