The English midlands extreme metal quintet GEHTIKA recently revealed details about their forthcoming release, “A Monster In Mourning”, slated for release 17th August 2015. Now Gehtika have unveiled the album artwork which can be seen below.

“The artwork was created by an insanely talented friend of ours, Scott Davidson,” states vocalist Anthony Knight. “We worked with him on our Impossible Question EP and the ‘Stack The Pyres’ single so, as with the the Owen Davies, our album producer, we had to go back to him for this.”

“Infinitely talented and a true gent to work with; Scott is amazing at creating fantasy artwork so we knew this would be a project he’d really get stuck into. Myself and our guitarist Scott [Allen] met up with him to go through the story, lyrics and overall concept and he went away and created a bunch of sketches which we really struggled to choose from! We eventually/reluctantly managed to narrow it down though and he’s produced the album artwork depicting the Prince character (aka the ‘Monster In Mourning’) plus two other pieces which are only available in the limited edition version of the album.”

“A Monster In Mourning” follows a concept the band had initially explored on previous single release ‘Stack The Pyres’ (which has been re-recorded for the album).

“As a band, this album is a big deal!” exclaims Anthony. “We’ve wanted to get another album under our belts for some time; we had a relatively quiet 2014, except for being given the opportunity to play the Sophie Lancaster Stage at Bloodstock (which was amazing!) so although we’ve been desperate to put out a new release we certainly didn’t want to rush it! We put in a ton of time at the studio writing (some may say too much time…) and dissected every bit of every track until we were confident they were perfect. A massive amount of time and effort has gone into making this; we wanted to create something special that we and our fans can all be really proud of.”

“Personally, this album has been huge amount of fun to write and has allowed me to try a few things, both lyrically and creatively, that I’ve always wanted to try! Not only have I had the opportunity to make every track part of the story, but I’ve been able to flesh out all of the characters in the book, something I’ve really enjoyed and am extremely proud of – I can’t wait for people to hear what we’ve created musically and also get immersed in the story… hopefully everyone enjoys reading the lyrics and story as much as we did writing it all!”

“A Monster In Mourning” is out 17th August 2015.

GEHTIKA have been kicking asses and assaulting the senses with their punishing brand of extreme metal and entertaining live performances for the past four years and it was only a few months back that the outfit announced that they had barricaded themselves behind the doors of Loud Noises Productions in JJM Studios, Walsall UK to track a brand new record with producer Owen Davies.

Ladies and gentlemen, Gehtika have emerged, and with them comes their latest slab of artistic madness. Entitled “A Monster In Mourning”, the album follows a concept the band had initially explored on single ‘Stack The Pyres’ (which also features on the album).

Vocalist Anthony Knight elaborates, “Myself and guitarist, Scott Allen, were spit-balling some ideas just before we started writing the album and we both loved the sound we’d created with ‘Stack The Pyres’ and the concept of the lyrics… The ideas just kept on coming, and not just for the sound and the concept, but the things we could do with the concept i.e. the book for the limited edition album… which fills the gaps in the story between the tacks. So essentially that one track became the basis for the entire album. We re-recorded ‘Stack The Pyres’ for the album so even those who have heard the single version now have something a bit different to look forward to!”

Listen To The Single Version Of ‘Stack The Pyres’ Here:
http://www.soundcloud.com/gehtika/stack-the-pyres

“‘A Monster In Mourning’ is the title of one of the album tracks and we felt that this song summed up the whole concept of the story. One of the main characters has a fairly monstrous reputation, yet within the lyrics and the story you get to see why he’s become the way he is and even get to see things from his point of view; see that he’s filled with remorse and tormented by his conscience. So naming the album after this track, and with reference to this character in particular, just made sense.”

“As we’d agreed that this would be a concept album following a story from start to finish, we had to work quite differently to how we usually would; for a start I had to come up with some ‘working track titles’ to give a feel for each stage/chapter of the story – this helped Scott and Topher in writing riffs that would suit the feel of each track. For example the opening track ‘One Night : Seven Sins’ sets the background events that are responsible for everything else that happens in the story, so this needed to be big and epic, which is especially brought out in Topher’s solos! Then there’s ‘The Massaquerade’ which is about a massacre at a masquerade so it’s lively, bouncy, fast and brutal.

“Despite us setting a bit more of a structure to the writing process, this didn’t limit us in any way and still felt very natural for everyone; it was like getting to write the story and the film score all at once! It was a lot of fun and I think it’ll definitely be a way of writing we’ll revisit in future!”

Tracklisting:
1. Apollyon
2. One Night Seven Sins
3. Step Forth From The Darkness
4. Stack The Pyres
5. Empire In Decay
6. A Monster In Mourning
7. Reckoning
8. The Massaquerade
9. Shepherd Of Erebus
10. The Fiend Staring Back At Me
11. A Halo Of Crows

“A Monster In Mourning” is out 17th August 2015.