[Cover photo credit to Ossian Danielsson Öberg]
Black Arcs Rising is the third studio album by Swedish Rock trio Statues and will arrive on May the 5th, 2023. It will be available in several vinyl variants as well as digitally. The new album was the product of some intense recording experiences for the band and the title also references ominous times ahead for humanity while keeping some dark humor in mind.
Statues says:
We recorded the album in the Swedish gramophone studio in Gothenburg. The time before we got some kind of hubris and recorded 20 songs, but ended up with 12. We worked non-stop the entire studio time of 5 days and ate, slept and showered with the instruments. Johan triggered the alarm the first thing he did and a microwave oven and an amplifier caught fire. The Cat People soundtrack and Neu went hot on the stereo.
The title warns of worse times. Black Arcs can be seen in a chart, but it can also mean that there are black arcs rising from the ground that warn of worse times. Our texts are often prophetic by accident. The last record, Holocene, had a song called Lockdown and then came the pandemic. The lyrics are as usual of the darker kind, but there is also a kind of black humor in the absurdity described. If you do it wrong, things will go to hell and therefore it must be warned about the madness that exists.
It may already be too late to save the world as the doomsday clock is close to midnight, but by pointing to the absurdities of environmental destruction, consumerism, capitalism, the annexation of other countries and an unwillingness to change behavior, we are doing what we can to encourage change.
Black Arcs Rising was Produced and mixed by Christian Ramirez who also adds additional guitar on the tracks ”Perfect Storm”, ”Sardonic Grin”, and ”Eyes in the Sky”, and mastered was by Magnus Lindberg. The album features guest vocals by Per Stålberg on ”Phantasm”, ”Dead of Summer”, and ”Hiding in a Hole”, and art direction by Joel Dunkels. As with Statues 2020 album Holocene, Black Arcs Rising is released by Swedish independent label Lövely Records.
