To be honest, I’d seize on just about any excuse to plaster Adam Burke’s stunning artwork for Firebreather’s self-titled debut album on our page again. It was his art that first drew me into the music of this Gothenburg trio, and their heavy-as-hell brand of sludge and doom kept me rooted in place as I listened to the album’s first single (“The Ice Lord“) early last month. Now I find myself in the fortunate position of bringing you the premiere of another track — “Fire Foretold” — in advance of the album’s October 13 release by Suicide Records.
You gotta love guitarist/vocalist Mattias Nööjd’s introduction of the song:
“‘Fire Foretold’ is straight-up a song about this warrior who grabs his big fucking sword and rides out into battle, slaying everything and anything in his path. The lyric, ‘The raging wolf’s head, hangs at my side / I took the red glow, I took the roar’? That’s how badass he is. This is the opening track and it’s setting the tone for the album, it’ll take you to dark and violent places.”
I ask you, who doesn’t love a song about a big fucking sword (and the sorcery of a raging wolf’s head)? I mean, other than the person on the receiving end of it?
When I listened to “The Ice Lord“, the thoughts that went through my head, as I later wrote, were these: “This is a hugely infectious bone-breaker, with dark riffs the size of redwoods and clobbering rhythms, both of which get the head moving immediately, as well as penetrating leads that bore into the skull like energized drill bits. And the gritty yowling vocals are equally arresting; it sounds like he’s got something caught in his throat… something like human bone splinters and clotted blood.”
“Fire Foretold” is, if anything, even more stunningly bleak, crushing, and vicious. You can feel the vibrations of the sinuous, mammoth-sized riffs inside your teeth, and the hammering of the rhythm section is hard enough to disjoint your back. Perhaps needless to say, it’s highly infectious music, but it’s also as dire and desolating as the plague. A completely riveting solo magnifies the track’s intensity even further — and Mattias Nööjd‘s voice remains frighteningly powerful. It’s a hell of a hellish track.
In other Firebreather news, the band have announced tour dates with Canada’s Zaum, and we turn again to Mattias Nööjd for a comment about that, and about his band’s future plans:
“Next up for us is a tour with Zaum that’s been planned for a long time, since last year actually. We just needed to cross a few hurdles. But we’re here now, we’re hitting the road on October 13th, the very same day as our album is released. So we’re stoked about that, we’re all really good friends and we’ve been touring together before, with Galvano.
“Beyond that we have a few Swedish shows in the works, as well as a visit to Finland at the start of next year. We’re also working on new stuff for a second album.”
Check out the Firebreather Facebook page for details about the tour, listen to “Fire Foretold” (and our repeat stream of “The Ice Lord” video), and avail yourselves of this pre-order link.
Pre-order Vinyl, CD, and digital here:
https://suiciderecordsswe.bandcamp.com/album/s-t
Firebreather:
https://www.facebook.com/firebreathergbg
Suicide Records:
http://www.suiciderecords.se/
https://www.facebook.com/suiciderds/
One Response to “AN NCS PREMIERE: FIREBREATHER — “FIRE FORETOLD””
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Sounds fantastic! They should come to Japan!!