MEMORIAM Feat. BOLT THROWER And BENEDICTION Members: First Trailer For 'For The Fallen' Album

MEMORIAM, the new Birmingham, United Kingdom-based death/grind metal band featuring Karl Willets (BOLT THROWER) on vocals, Frank Healy (BENEDICTION, CEREBRAL FIX) on bass, Scott Fairfax (CEREBRAL FIX) on guitar and Andy Whale (BOLT THROWER) on drums, will release its debut album, "For The Fallen", on March 24 through Nuclear Blast Records. It will contain eight tracks, including "War Rages On", "Resistance" (both featured on "The Hellfire Demos I") and "Surrounded (By Death)" (featured on "The Hellfire Demos II"). The album's impressive artwork was created by Dan Seagrave (BENEDICTION, DISMEMBER, HYPOCRISY, SUFFOCATION).

The first trailer for "For The Fallen", in which the members of MEMORIAM talk about how the band was formed, is available below.

Dan stated about the artwork: "Starting from the band's thoughts on visualizing a kind of funeral procession with a theme of combat, war and in conjunction with the title 'For The Fallen', as with all my works, I then attempt to make the information evolve in my mind's eye, and allow imagination to take over those elements but retaining the core concept. The painting thus depicts a funeral procession moving through a long-wartorn cityscape. Twisted shards of towers and buildings. A cathedral facade stands defiantly, yet riddled with destruction and decay. At closer insp,ection the structures all seem to be infected with an element of natural decomposition, as if organically inclined to fade with the demise of the season, the season itself lost in a timeless void. The figures appear as remnants of once soldiers, now strange in their gathered mass, drawn forwards by the drifting momentum of the procession. Unaware of their emaciated state they follow the commander. The commander's elongated appearance is tattered and almost creature-like, with the combat-style elements and gasmask falsely presenting as a costume. The procession appears almost ghost-like, ancient and serene, slowly moving through this eerie place as if forever. Far in the background there might still be a war happening, but perhaps in another time. As we view a sublevel of reality, lost in the present, captured in light, where the war had passed through and we are left in a ghost biology, where chemicals and history meet to create an inescapable surrealism."

To give a first taster of what to expect from this highly-anticipated record, the first single from "For The Fallen", "Reduced To Zero", can be streamed below.

Willetts stated about the track: "'Reduced To Zero' is a comment on the times that we live in. In a world that is dominated by fear, hatred and intolerance, the song is a direct result of Brexit and Trump and the general rise of right wing nationalistic xenophobia."

Pre-order "For The Fallen" now digitally and receive "Reduced To Zero" instantly.

"For The Fallen" track listing:

Digi

01. Memoriam
02. War Rages On
03. Reduced To Zero
04. Corrupted System
05. Flatline
06. Surrounded (By Death)
07. Resistance
08. Last Words

LP

Side A

01. Memoriam
02. War Rages On
03. Reduced To Zero
04. Corrupted System

Side B

01. Flatline
02. Surrounded (By Death)
03. Resistance
04. Last Words

MEMORIAM was primarily developed to fill the void that was left following the tragic death of Martin "Kiddie" Kearns, the drummer from BOLT THROWER, back in September 2015. BOLT THROWER subsequently placed all activity on hold for the foreseeable future which gave Karl Willetts an opportunity to develop a new project with friends that had expressed interest in forming a band for some time.

MEMORIAM is an old-school death metal band, maintaining the standards set by their previous bands, focusing on the themes of death, loss and war. Initially, the bandmembers got together to play covers of songs that had influenced them throughout their careers within the death metal scene. However, it soon became apparent that the new songs that they created were of a superior standard.

Photo credit: Gobinder Jhitta