Photo (C) Alex Solca
The iconic Masters of Reality first new album in 16 years, The Archer, is available today to stream everywhere HERE via Mascot Records. The album will also be available physically on CD & LP on 11 April. To celebrate, they have revealed the video for new song “It All Comes Back To You,” which you can watch HERE.
They will also be touring in April calling through The Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and Germany as well as Azkena Rock Festival (Spain), Hellfest (France) in June and Up in Smoke Festival (Switzerland), Keep It Low Festival (Germany) and Desertfest (Belgium) in October.
Chris Goss is one of the elusive geniuses of American music. As the singer, guitarist and driving force behind Masters Of Reality, he’s spent more than 40 years charting his own musical journey, travelling from mystical blues to desert rock to psychedelia-edged beauty via all points in between.
New song, “It All Comes Back To You” is a dreamy psychedelic rocker which is undeniably Masters of Reality; with its Karmic retribution ponderings, comes at a time when the personal perception of purpose has been twisted into a large mass of unrecognizable brainwashed self-portraits. “It was a touchy tightrope to walk. A laughable analysis trap. But saved by a simple resolve, I think,” he says. “It actually does all come back to you. Nothing new here; You reap what you sow,” Goss says.
Goss has positioned himself as one of the most important and influential producers of the last 30 years. His intuitive sense for music that was both ground-breaking and visceral led him to a bunch of kids from Palm Desert called Kyuss, who played heavy music with a transcendental edge. Goss worked with the band on three landmark albums in the early 1990s, helping plant the seeds for the so-called desert rock movement that would flower throughout the rest of the decade.
He went on to work with Queens Of The Stone Age, Mark Lanegan, Foo Fighters, The Cult, UNKLE, Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland, former Hole bassist Melissa Auf Der Maur, even Hollywood star Russell Crowe.
One near miss was Nirvana – Dave Grohl told him that the grunge band had considered Goss as a producer for the follow-up to Nevermind. “They used to listen to Masters Of Reality and Kyuss in their van,” says Goss. “But I would have wanted to fuck their sound up.
“This is yet another track that was years in the making,” he goes on to say of It All Comes Back To You. “The chorus was written on keyboards over a decade ago. The verses were a struggle over the years. Sometimes it’s a nightmare to write a decent chorus before you have the meat of the song first. Again, as with other songs on this album it’s about sorting out what’s real and what isn’t. I think that’s a topic for the times. We have a slew of mystics stating that your own reality is made by yourself. To a small point, they’re right. But here we are, all of us typing all day. Lead into an existence where it seems to be necessary to be online and most of the ‘civilized’ world willfully walking into being zombified digital addicts.”
He continues, “But it does come back to you and you alone the decision to go along with it all or not. We are in uncharted waters in this era, probably like we have been for at least 50 years. The result is showing its head.”
Previous single “Mr Tap ‘n Go” is a bloodthirsty vaudevillian dancing monster entertaining the planet with a syringe in one hand and a child in the other. “The unauthorized veterinarian trying to scramble all of us animals into sick acceptable submission. And he remains invisible to a large portion of the zombified walking corpses left in the world,” he says.
This followed Sugar, which was released in May 2024 and heralded their return. Hypnotic, poignant, and vulnerable, it builds from a stirring melody into a grand, orchestrated swell of emotion, with Goss’s ethereal yet soulful voice floating over the top of it.
The characters that occupy The Archer are the nameless and faceless people that one sees at times or regularly observes driving on whatever road we’re both on briefly. “Everyone has a story. And their own story is the most important thing in the world to them,” he says. “No one is special. Everyone is heading towards, or actually in, their own ‘Gethsemane’ moment- a New Testament narrative that exemplifies the cold realization of one’s fate. Sweating blood is more common than most can imagine.”
“The Archer is whoever one perceives as their invisible ruler of fate,” explains Goss. “Often, the archer is very visible to those who pay attention. Maybe some even think he is the dictatorial god. Or even a conjured entity. But all can agree that the archer has impeccable skill at hitting the target.”
The arrival of The Archer —produced by Goss and featuring guitarist Alain Johannes, drummer John Leamy, and bassist Paul Powell—heralds the welcome return of Masters Of Reality.
Future-facing, Goss is going to take 2025 with both hands. “The challenge of creating the dynamic range of the new music is a bit daunting at the moment because we haven’t done these songs live yet. But I believe once we’re in rehearsals with a bit of sweat, we’ll have a blast. A weird, sometimes melancholic blast but that’s what the blues is; Laughing at both the devil and our own human folly at the same time.”
1. The Archer
2. I Had A Dream
3. Chicken Little
4. Mr. Tap n’ Go
5. Barstow
6. Sugar
7. Powder Man
8. It All Comes Back To You
9. Bible Head
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Click image to watch the video
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