Progressive rock/metal favorites The Contortionist have re-emerged with a new song, “Early Grave”, today. Alongside a music video, the band have also announced their new EP, Our Bones, that is dropping in August via Entertainment One / Good Fight Music. Notably, the new song is another evolution in the band’s career, a shorter song that honestly has lots of Deftones, Tool, and even Katatonia vibes. In other words, it’s a must-hear.
Crafted in the compound owned by producer/engineer John Douglass (Coheed & Cambria, Bad Wolves, Carnifex), where the guys were able to live and work, Our Bones began with some ideas Robby Baca would regularly run through at the band’s sound checks.
“Once I was finally able to get Robby to record that riff we started piecing together the song in the back of the van, while on tour in Europe,” Lessard recalls. The result was lead single “Early Grave,” an expression of gratitude to the fans who’ve shared their stories of heartbreak, loneliness, and depression, and found new strength in the music of The Contortionist.
The band’s blistering new EP sees The Contortionist step outside the atmospheric storytelling of their critically-lauded conceptual masterpiece Clairvoyant (2017) to indulge an aggressive shadow side. More an anthology of standalone bursts of intensity, Our Bones isn’t a mere stopover between albums. It’s both a definitive look back and an ambitious leap forward.
“We try to do something different with everything we create,” explains Lessard. “With our albums, we tend to work with overarching interconnected themes. ‘Our Bones’ is a departure. It offered an opportunity to dive into some things we haven’t had a chance to explore, and the shorter EP format allowed us to be hyper-focused on each song.”
Our Bones was mixed and mastered by longtime collaborator Jamie King (Between The Buried And Me, Through The Eyes Of The Dead), who worked on Language and Clairvoyant.
While The Contortionist ultimately has proven themselves masters of psychedelic-enhanced experimentation and trippy melodicism, endearing them to fans of later period Enslaved and Sigur Ros alike, they have never entirely forsaken the urgent impact of tech-leaning extremity.
