Evoken, the funeral doom legends hailing from the depressing-ass state of New Jersey, have officially announced their first new album in six years. Hypnagogia will be out on November 9 and is Evoken's first-ever concept album. Here's how the band describes the story and effort overall.
"[It's] based around WWI and its physiological impact on those who fought. It’s used metaphorically about events that impacted me the past three years, which I will keep to myself. But the story behind this WW1 theme is based on a soldier who was so bitter about being lied to and is losing his life. He's wounded in battle and decides to write a journal of his final hours, describing what he sees and what he feels as his life is slipping away. Feeling cheated, he makes a pact with a sadistic god that he can leave a part of his soul, which contains all of his suffering, within this journal.
"To feel some sort of vengeance, anyone who reads this journal releases that part of his soul and it attaches itself to the reader like a host. Each emotion being experienced as if they too were there. As the reader descends into a deep despair, they cannot handle this suffering, deciding to take their own life. Once gone, that part of their soul, containing all the misery is taken by the writer’s misery-laden soul and attaches itself to this journal again, increasing its powerful grip onto the next reader and each time its read with its power increasing.”
Hypnagogia was recorded, mixed and mastered at Sound Spa studios in New Jersey by Steven DeAcutis and features artwork by Adam Burke. This is also Evoken's first album with guitarist Randy Cavanaugh (Anticosm, Grim Legion), who joined this year.
