After that, we raced across town to get to Kerrang central! There we were met by Johnny Doom, formerly of the band Doom and a celebrity DJ for Kerrang. The guy was awesome and asked smart questions during the segment too. He spoke of the new album and the tour and in general was very friendly and very, very knowledgeable in his metal, obviously!

The segment will be available on the Kerrang website soon, but until that, you can enjoy some photos of us in the Kerrang building below!

Morning came. Got ourselves some breakfast and talked politics for a while. Long drive back to Jake’s in Birmingham, during which we were treated to the spectacle of British weather, from rain to shine and back for around fifteen times in a half hour.

At Jake’s we relaxed and rested our tired bones for a while, showered, played Wii and got treated to some earthshakingly good soup courtesy of Zoe, Jake’s girl.

After a short drive to Stourbridge we got to Katie Fitzgeralds, the venue for tonight, and man, it is awesome. A small room, granted, but nice stage and sound set up, spotless clean and in general has a great vibe about it.

The Godsize boys walked in shortly after and they are a great bunch, entertaining us from the get-go with stories of Amsterdam later on in the night and MC Hammer in 1991. Awesome boys.

The gig was really good too! There was a good crowd for both Slab and Godsize, both of whom sang our praises, and in Godsize’s case, ‘greeted’ us in the vilest Maltese possible. The room was boiling with vapor from people breathing and pretty soon condensation formed on everything, making playing a little harder since our instruments became quite slippery then.

We played the longest setlist thus far on this tour and we had a really good reception from everyone there, although to be fair, by the end of it, we were deafened. Really good gig all in all, we were very pleased and will definitely return!

Short drive back to Birmingham and a stop at an all night kebab house for a midnight snack and then we hit the hay.

Tuesday is press day for, we have interviews scheduled with a few people, including Kerrang here in Birmingham. After that, we’ll just rest and prepare ourselves for the 5 gig sprint as of tomorrow! Wakefield beckons!

Will have photos up on this post soon, as soon as the batteries on the camera charge up a little! Details about our radio stuff will also follow shortly!

Back to the album, this is some info about it.

It is called Despondent By Design, has 10 tracks on it and shall have a total run time of 41 minutes. The tracklist is as follows:

1. Hellfire
2. As Cold As They Come
3. November
4. The Devil’s Playground
5. Black Light
6. Children Of A Lesser God
7. This Respect
8. This Overwhelming Grasp Of Solitude
9. The Dark Diaries
10. The End Of All Things Good

Lyrically, this is what the songs are about:

• Hellfire deals with the story of a couple who push the boundaries of an unholy relationship and suffer the consequences thereafter.
• As Cold As They Come speaks of the abuse of a partner in a relationship, laying the blame on them for leaving, inventing faults and then leaving them hung out to dry
• November speaks of the loss of a dear person, Jade, in the month of November, of things planned and turned to shit and the regret and sadness from this untimely departure.
• The Devil’s Playground is the place we find ourselves in so many times, the crossroads of indecision, generally after betrayal and trying to take a next step with someone else after it’s over.
• Black Light is about the end of one’s life. Some people see death as dark, macabre and unwanted, but for others, though black, it’s also a guiding light.
• Children Of A Lesser God treats the endless cycle of physical and sexual abuse and that which stems from it.
• This Respect is about people who use the word respect as a punchline without ever getting into the merits of what respecting others really means.
• This Overwhelming Grasp Of Solitude is about the sense of despair one gets when they feel they are not understood even by the people closest to them and whom they love.
• The Dark Diaries is a dialogue between a shrink and a patient, in which the shrink repeats that it’s not so bad and it could be worse, while the patient screams that this simply isn’t good enough, this is not what he/she wants to hear, this does not lessen my pain.
• The End Of All Things Good speaks of a vendetta carried down through generations, owing to an a horrid act carried out long ago yet never spoken of or atoned for.

And speaking of the end of all things good, I think that’s more than enough positive vibes for the day I’ll leave you with our track Black Light for our enjoyment once again, and the promise of more new stuff soon!

Black Light by loathe

24th October, Leicester, Exiles @ Redeemer w/Spirytus

25th October, Neath (Wales), The Duke

26th October, Stourbridge, Katie Fitzgeralds, w/Godsize

28th October, Wakefield, The Snooty Fox

29th October, Manchester, The Star & Garter, w/MWP

30th October, Wolverhampton, The Giffard Arms

31st October, The Unicorn, Camden, London, w/Nebukadnezza & many more!

01 November, Birmingham, Scruffy Murphy’s, w/Morgue Orgy

As a special bonus (not really, this is something we’ve promised for some time now, the new song is below in our soundcloud player. The song is called Black Light and is the first to be published from our new album “Despondent By Design”. Said album should be released soon.

Hope you like what you hear! Later amigos…..

Black Light by loathe

New album (we are listening to the unmastered mix right now, and it sounds sickeningly good. Not blowing our own trumpet here, we’re just in love with how it sounds, and very satisfied too!)

New video (y’know, snippets of our idiocy at the studio while recording the album) New website (which should be like a town centre to all our profiles across a bunch of sites. Pretty cool looking so far. Still coding right now, but promise to have it online soon)

New tour dates (we do have them, we just need to get moving on a flyer, and then all the dates will be published. UK be warned)

New gig (yeah that doesn’t sound right does it? Anyway, we figure we ought to play live at least once every six months in Malta, so once the damn summer tapers off and things chill a little, get ready to see our drunken selves on stage)

That’s pretty much it for now! We’ll be touch with a checklist of what’s done soon!

Looking forward to seeing you all!

love

the Loathe boys

Some of you may know, summer in Malta is a very particular kind of experience. To give you an example, the temperature today is 30 Degrees Celsius or 86 Fahrenheit, sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky, and essentially, very, very hot. This continues for most of summer, and only gets worse come September, when temperatures fall slightly but humidity almost doubles.

As you can imagine, this is not the ideal weather to play our brand of metal. More so in our practice space, which is a one car garage, completely soundproofed, with no air conditioning, and a number of valve amps inside. It’s fair to say that while the Swedes have their saunas and the Turks have their baths, we get down to practice in our little hot house.

All that said, we haven’t been inactive. The new album, ‘Despondent By Design’, has been recorded for a few weeks now, but we haven’t rested since. The artwork is getting drafted by our good friends Cedric and Clint at MadMadeMedia (formerly Gloryhole) and we have some really good ideas, all of which we can’t wait to unveil. A tour in the UK is also in the works, courtesy of our best friends Slab, and this should cover a lot of the United Kingdom come October.

We have also been practicing regularly throughout the week, and a new song, one that came too late to be on the album is now complete too. The song carries the working name ‘Wakkafew’, which really is an inside joke too complex to ever explain.

We may also be playing a few festivals locally, however a lot of that is still shrouded in secrecy (or uncertainty?) so I can’t at all be too definite about those.

And within the cool confines of air conditioned offices and houses, we’ve been busy with ideas for the new website, which will replace this one at this location, getting new people to listen to our stuff on Twitter, ( @loathetheband anyone?) and our facebook page: www.facebook.com/loathe

Finally, as a bonus to you loyal readers, here goes with a few live pics of the band from over the years. We’ll be sharing more media soon, and hopefully will have tracks for you from the album very very soon!

We’re going to have a short break (maybe a week?) from the CD so that we can approach it with a fresh mind set when it comes to hearing the mixes and then decide what we want changed at mastering level. Meanwhile, our good friends Cedric, Clint and Max from Gloryhole will be creating the artwork for us. We have basically given them carte blanche as to what they may do, as we are sure that their creative juices flow best this way, and are expecting something awesome from them.

We shall keep you updated with any progress, and promise to post a few pics and a video on here sometime next week. We have loads of footage from the studio, now there is the slight matter of sifting through it and choosing the best, and most idiotic. Also, be on the lookout for a new blog at a new URL, but more of that later!

Also, check out our best mates Knockturn Alley’s new drummer at this link: http://knockturnalleyband.com/blog/2009/07/new-medusa-review-drummer-video/
Their album, Medusa, a bone crushing piece of melodic metal in my humble opinion, has been receiving rave reviews from around the globe, and this is very well deserved.

Finally, if you’re local, or are currently in Malta, do not forget the gig at SKY club tomorrow. The much expected return of Coalition to the Sun (formerly Tendency Charge), coupled with the sheer ear splitting force of Abysmal Torment and groovy takedowns from In The Name Of ought to make for a great night of uncompromising metal music. More event details follow at this link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=logo#/event.php?eid=209944260716&ref=ts

Michael Jackson hasn

The album is about half done now. All drums have been recorded for days, and virtually all the edits there are now completed. We didn’t sit on our haunches while that got done though, and recorded guitars and bass for 6 of the 10 songs. Vocals have been started too, about 3 songs are done complete with backing. And a cellist. Not really.

Back to the studio for us tonight, and we should be chalking up at least another two songs now. After this we’ll give our singer Beast some time to catch up with us in tracking, while we sit downstairs, watch comedy or 80s films and smoke ourselves into an early grave.

That’s all for now people, check back soon!

BTW, do you like art? If so, check this out: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marija-Debono/108176797304?ref=ts
Young but budding artist. Some really cool stuff on there!

Laters~

We had a really great weekend. Work on the CD is proceeding smoothly and we’re seeing good progress being made.

A few bass tracks and guitar tracks have also been recorded and when put together with the drums it sounds really powerful, something we were going for, so thumbs up there.

More guitars and bass to be recorded today, actually, are being done as I type. Maybe a little vocals later. Let them creative juices flow!

Laters

Btw, a few pics for you amusement/enjoyment/derision