All Else Fails Confront Mental Illness Through The Chaos Of “Devour the Sun” Off “The Incident at Black Lake”
New EP “The Incident at Black Lake” Out Now!
Photo Credit – Barrett Klesko – FadeBack Studios United
Canada’s All Else Fails recently unleashed their EP “The Incident at Black Lake”, one of the darkest records they’ve ever written, it comes from a place of despair and torment as vocalist/guitarist Barrett Klesko battled with his inner demons. The music video for the latest single “Devour The Sun” ft. Seedy Mitchell (Sleepwraith, ex-All Else Fails) is an allegory about Klesko’s descent, rending the spaces between conscious suffering and unconscious turmoil. He explains the track in more detail:
“A child from a beautiful nameless place travels across existence. It was born in warmth and life, from an engine of creation, and its only need is to share who it is with whatever it comes in contact with. The child drifts, older now, and comfortable at first to be pulled along by the forces around it, buffeted across the ether, fulfilled by the simple act of experience. Over time, however, discontent begins to grow. Who was it? There must be a purpose beyond drifting endlessly in the black. Its questions turn to screams and cries in the heavens, but the black has no answers. Eventually, devoid of solace, its voice becomes quiet and its mind despondent. Musically this song follows an unconventional narrative. It ebbs and flows, thrash riffs turn to piano-esque clean parts. Soaring melodies devolve into full-bodied guttural torment before becoming ethereal whispers.”
“Devour the Sun” is about losing one’s purpose, becoming adrift and formless, buffeted by the uncontrollable winds of the common world, and unable to find solid footing. It is being swept into the wild, so far from one’s roots that they are barely a twinge of traumatic memory in the maw of the unknown. It is loud, it is quiet. It follows its own unusual structure while pulling the listener along its flow.
On this new EP, All Else Fails wrote until they felt that this selection of songs was complete, and then went into the studio. It’s much more personal lyrically, more direct, and in our current era, more relatable. There is a lot of chaotic energy in the recording, but they have placed every distorted chug, every strange gurgle, detuned synth, erratic glitch, or doom-inducing bass drop carefully.
Recommended for fans of Revocation, Soilwork, and Fleshgod Apocalypse, the music video for “Devour The Sun” can be seen and heard via its premiere on NewFuryMedia HERE.
“The Incident at Black Lake” is available at Allelsefails.bandcamp.com, Spotify, Apple Music.
Music Video – I, Defiler – https://youtu.be/RwNjIFc6aPY
Track Listing:
1. I, Defiler (5:48)
2. Devour the Sun (8:24) ft. Seedy Mitchell
3. Flesh /Excess /Wealth (5:36)
4. Crystal Mountain (5:19)
EP Length: 25:09
All Else Fails is:
Barrett Klesko – Vocals, Guitar
John Saturley – Guitar
Coco Lee – Bass, Vocals
Nelson Collins-Lee – Drums
About:
Over the last 15 years, Edmonton, Alberta based award-winning metal band All Else Fails has become a cornerstone of the melodic heavy metal community in Canada. Combining intense riffs, intricate rhythm sections, brutal guttural screams, and melodic yet unusual vocal lines paired with relevant and relatable lyrics, All Else Fails’ message resonates with us all.
Formed in 2006 with the release of their self-titled EP, All Else Fails has gone on to release 9 studio albums, many of which have garnered awards and nominations from across the Canadian music industry and have propelled the band into live performances all over the world, including their massively successful tour of India in 2017.
For the past two years, the band has been hard at work writing their new album “The Incident at Black Lake.” A deeply personal, brutally honest, and staggeringly complex take on the reality-bending mental struggles of vocalist and founder, Barrett Klesko (The Misfires, The Order of Chaos). The band is filled out by guitarist John Saturley (The Order of Chaos, Skepsis), bassist and vocalist Coco Lee (Eternal Prophecy), and drummer Nelson Collins-Lee (The 21st Agenda, Skepsis). The album is produced by Bevin Booth of In the Booth Recordings and engineered at The Electric Treehouse in Edmonton, Alberta.
In 2022, the band is returning to their DIY roots by mindfully abandoning their social media and redirecting their energy to contributing to their local metal scene by building a direct personal connection to their fans and followers, living in line with a humanist philosophy and encouraging a culture of support between artists. All Else Fails’ new single “Flesh /Excess /Wealth” drops in early September with the full EP “The Incident at Black Lake” releasing September 30th. Fans can experience their explosive new live show this fall in Western Canada.
