[Cover photo credit to Dania Ramos]
Charlotte, North Carolina Metal band Wretched have been working for the past two years on their fifth full-length album, Decay. Set for release on October 17th, 2025, on Metal Blade Records, the album is also heralded by a title track and video release.
This fifth album, which is a prequel to 2010’s Beyond The Gate, “delves into existential themes, D&D-inspired mythology, and personal loss.”
Drummer Marshall Wieczorek says:
We’ve had a lot of time to grow and reflect in the time between our last album and Decay. WRETCHED is doing what WRETCHED always does, and that’s exploring our environment and leaving room for ourselves to try different things. To sum things up, the new album is dynamic. We go here, we go there, we go everywhere. There is no shortage of groove, heaviness, speed, melodicism, prettiness, and sadness.
Vocalist Billy Powers says about the album:
‘Decay’ is 100% a concept album. ‘Beyond The Gate’ had an element this record shares, the talisman. I always knew there was more story there and was very excited to join up with the guys again to put that in motion. The first track I wrote was ‘The Golden Tide.’ I had no idea where I was going to take the story connection to ‘Beyond The Gate’ until I typed the first line of the song. ‘They began in the dark.’ After that, the lyrics poured out of my mind and by the end of it I realized that this story takes place many years before the content of ‘Beyond The Gate’.
The LP’s title track and first single contains the album’s main character, Malus, along with a character from Beyond The Gate named Elturiel.
In broader terms, decay refers to many elements of the album’s story.
Powers explains:
The decay of good intention, the loss of loved ones, the influence time and choices has upon our bodies and minds and the decay of the world around us due to the choices of those with ultimate power.
[The song] ‘Decay’ is a chapter in our story in which our main character Malus has lost his physical body due to becoming possessed by an ancient Necromancer. He is just a conscious thought floating through the void between time and space, conjuring a familial djinn named Elturiel to gain his assistance in returning to his mortal shell.
This track revolves a lot around out of body experience, lucid dreaming, inner voices/internal dialogue, and the potential for reincarnation. It’s the feeling when you’re so sure that you’ve lost it all, yet you see that little shimmering glimmer of hope at the end of a long, dark tunnel. Then you have the rug pulled out from underneath you to find that the darkness is what you may only ever know. Not to say that all hope is lost because, in the context of the lyrics, it is not. There’s a repeated line near the middle and ending of the song that says ‘once more upon this eternal flat circle.’ It is inspired by True Detective S1 where it’s said ‘time is a flat circle.’ This has all happened before and will all happen again. I’m not a flat earther.
Wretched will play four shows with Aether Realm and Paladin later this week. In September, the band will support labelmates Six Feet Under this Fall on their US headlining tour. The tour runs from September 21st through October 25th. Additional will be provided by Exhorder and Incite.
WRETCHED w/ Aether Realm, Paladin:
8/08/2025 Eulogy – Asheville, NC
8/09/2025 Chapel Of Bones – Raleigh, NC
w/ Aether Realm:
8/10/2025 The State Theatre – Greenville, NC
w/ Six Feet Under, Exhorder, Incite:
9/21/2025 The King Of Clubs – Columbus, OH
9/22/2025 Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
9/23/2025 Chapel Of Bones – Raleigh, NC
9/25/2025 Conduit – Orlando, FL
9/26/2025 Orpheum – Tampa, FL
9/27/2025 Club LA – Destin, FL
9/28/2025 Chelsea’s Live – Baton Rouge, LA
9/29/2025 Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX
9/30/2025 Jake’s – Lubbock, TX
10/02/2025 The Rock – Tucson, AZ
10/03/2025 House Of Blues – San Diego, CA
10/04/2025 Humdinger – San Luis Obispo, CA
10/07/2025 El Corazon – Seattle, WA
10/09/2025 Ray’s Golden Lion – Richland, WA
10/10/2025 Nova PDX – Portland, OR
10/11/2025 The Shredder – Boise, ID
10/13/2025 The Oriental Theatre – Denver, CO
10/15/2025 The Vanguard – Tulsa, OK
10/16/2025 Wooly’s – Des Moines, IA
10/17/2025 The Canopy Club – Urbana, IL
10/18/2025 Avondale – Chicago, IL
10/19/2025 Venue Event Center – Cadillac, MI
10/20/2025 Sanctuary – Detroit, MI
10/21/2025 Rec Room – Buffalo, NY
10/22/2025 District Music Hall – Norwalk, CT
10/23/2025 Brooklyn Monarch – Brooklyn, NY
10/24/2025 Broken Goblet – Bensalem, PA
10/25/2025 Preserving Underground – New Kensington, PA
