HELL MILITIA Make New Studio Album ‘Hollow Void’ Available For Streaming In Its Entirety
March 17th, 2022
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French black metal band Hell Militia issue fourth full-length studio album Hollow Void on March 18th, 2022 through Season Of Mist Underground Activists.
The outing can be streamed in its entirety via YouTube below.
Hell Militia entered Studio Saint-Loup outside of Paris in the autumn of 2020 to lay down drums. Additional instruments, vocals, and mix and mastering were conducted with producer / engineer BST at BST Studios through the summer and autumn of 2021. Former vocalist Meyhna’ch provides guest vocals on closing track ‘Corruption Rejoice’.
“The whole recording process took longer than expected, but as life took its turn straight up until the vocal recordings, the timing was exactly what it needed to be,” frontman RSDX commented. “A lot of these experiences were included in the lyrics, giving an honest reflection of what was going on. Bitter days, unshakable religious faith, death, contempt for life, urban filth and an even more bitter aftertaste turned into the toxic cocktail we called Hollow Void. Still, the pent-up energy increased to a point it just had to explode. We put all that energy back into the album. Now that everything is recorded, we await the date we can unleash this on this world. We will keep the energy at this level until it’s time we can perform it.”
RSDX critiqued Hollow Void against past efforts. “We wanted to make a much more aggressive approach this time,” he confirmed. “A true-to-form, punch-in-the-face comeback album. We wanted to combine the dissonant riffs of Jacob’s Ladder (2012) with the raw and filthy sound of our first album, Canonisation Of The Foul Spirit (2005) and include some new elements. I think we succeeded in this, as it is much more raw, aggressive, yet catchy and 100 percent recognizable as Hell Militia.”
Hollow Void draws lyrical inspiration from recent times. “The lyrics are the universe of Hell Militia, and at times, also a diary of all events of the last couple of years,” RSDX shared. “It is a summary of bitter days, fanatic unshakable religious faith, urban filth, decay, death worship and an extremely bitter aftertaste. It has traditional Satanism and a contempt for life at its very core.”
Nevertheless, RSDX feels Hell Militia are still the same. “We are still the old, bitter radical individuals whose masks are off,” he concluded. “What the scene does is of no concern or interest to us. We are in contact with bands and individuals we respect. The rest of the world can keep their watered down, non-ideological form of black metal. Black metal to us means the same as it did when the band was founded: A vessel of strong expression in music and ideology with unshakable faith at its very core. If a band doesn’t have that, it’s not black metal. I may approach life differently now that I’m in my 40s than when I was in my 20s, but the attitude and radical stand on what black metal should be has not changed.”
Cover artwork was designed by Manuel Tinnemans of Comaworx.
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The track listing is as follows:
01. ‘Lifeless Light’
02. ‘Genesis Undone’
03. ‘Dust Of Time’
04. ‘Within the Maze’
05. ‘Hollow Void’
06. ‘The Highest Fall’
07. ‘Kingdoms Scorched’
08. ‘Veneration’
09. ‘Corruption Rejoice’
Hell Militia’s line-up is as follows:
RSDX (vocals)
Arkdaemon (guitars)
Saroth (guitars)
S. (bass)
Dave Terror (drums)
An official lyric video was created for the track ‘Dust Of Time’, which can be viewed below.
Third studio record Jacob’s Ladder was released in November 2012 via Season Of Mist Underground Activists.
Promotional photograph by Phobos.
