KTHRTK (“cathartic”) RELEASES DEBUT FULL-LENGTH
DREAMS ARE THE ONLY SAFE PLACE TO HIDE
ON JUNE 9th
SECOND SINGLE + VIDEO “FUNERAL” OUT MAY 12th
KTHRTK’s debut album Dreams Are The Only Safe Place To Hide draws from metalcore, math metal, technical death metal, symphonic metal, groove metal, nu metal, etc. The hitch is that project founder Doug Berns finds an unprecedented level of tunefulness not only in all the different styles of screaming he employs, but in the cymbals, drum heads, bass rumble and 7-string guitar distortion.
Credits:
Doug Berns—guitar, vocals, bass, synthesizers, compositionSean Salant—lead guitarAlex Cohen—drumsProduced by Danny PellegriniMixed by Kolton Lee
Berns spent years as a touring member of Afrobeat groups like Antibalas and EMEFE and is currently part of legendary NYC nightclub Cafe Wha‘s house band.
He’s nurtured a love for metal since discovering Iron Maiden’s iconic “Aces High” at 13. While also steeping himself in funk, soul, jazz and Afrobeat, Berns latched onto classic proto-metal groups like Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Dio and UFO. Before long, his tastes grew to include harsher, more technical fare like Meshuggah, Death, Fit For An Autopsy, Tesseract and After the Burial.
The unsettling video for “Funeral” brings to life the album’s gut-punching themes of betrayal and anguish. As incensed as the music gets, though, Dreams Are The Only Safe Place To Hide presents anger not as a one-note expression but as a complete, lifelike range of experience. Grief, bitterness, shock, paralysis, depression, the thirst for revenge and, ultimately, triumph all find a voice within Berns’ vibrant, furiously determined vision of what metal can be.
KTHRTK online:
Spotify
Bandcamp
YouTube
Instagram
more quotes from Berns:
“This is great workout music lol. The album deals with exorcising your most horrifying demons and turning yourself into a titan.”
“I love the stuff I’m most known for playing, but the music I’m making with KTHRTK has been in my heart my whole life. It maybe took me a while to recognize it, but now I’m in a place where I don’t feel the need to filter it through anything else. Especially since the message is so important to me.”
“I want this record to lay out the experience of going through the stages of trauma. I ordered the songs that way, so that listeners get immersed in them all: paralyzing depression, confusion, fury, melancholy and—ultimately—acceptance. By the time you’ve gone through that progression, you realize you’ve undergone a full restructuring and strengthening of self. I came out of my ordeal as in-touch with myself and as confident as I’ve ever been.”
“Anger can get really one-dimensional and lose its meaning very quickly. But anger can be extremely useful—it can give you a sense of purpose when you’ve lost the will to go on. And it can kind of put you back in touch with yourself, which is very powerful. There are also different shades to anger that I don’t think get enough attention. It’s not just a one-note emotion. The way I present anger on the record is as my way of encouraging the audience.”
“I want the people who hear this album to know that, no matter where they are in the process of understanding themselves, there’s always hope. Hang on for dear life and you’ll come out the other side. This music is living proof of that.”
