THE AMITY AFFLICTION Announces New Album 'Not Without My Ghosts', Shares 'It's Hell Down Here' Video

Australian metalcore trailblazers THE AMITY AFFLICTION will release their new album, "Not Without My Ghosts", on May 12 via Pure Noise. To celebrate the news, the band has shared the video for "It's Hell Down Here". Watch it below.

"It's Hell Down Here" address mortality — a topic frequented several times on the album. It also boasts the vocal dynamics and pummeling breakdowns that are the band's signatures.

THE AMITY AFFLICTION vocalist Joel Birch states: "This song is a letter from myself and Ahren [Stringer, bass/vocals], written by me, to our friends who have passed on to the other side."

He continues: "I'm 41. I'm bipolar. And I'm pretty tired of it. That's where lyrics like 'Like a snake I tire / the cold dark clouds, they steal my light' come from. The song is wrapping up how I feel daily, and reflecting on the time leading up to my friend killing himself. I'm sure a lot of people who have experienced that guilt at not seeing what becomes glaringly obvious after the fact."

The album boasts multiple features — something the band has not incorporated into a release in quite some time — including late New Zealand rapper Louie Knuxx, who passed away in 2021, as well as COMEBACK KID's Andrew Neufeld, THE PLOT IN YOU's Landon Tewers, and Phem.

"Not Without My Ghosts" track listing:

01. Show Me Your God
02. It's Hell Down Here
03. Fade Away
04. Death And The Setting Sun (feat. Andrew Neufeld)
05. I See Dead People (feat. Louie Knuxx)
06. When It Rains It Pours (feat. Landon Tewers)
07. The Big Sleep
08. Close To Me
09. God Voice
10. Not Without My Ghosts (feat. Phem)

In a recent interview with AndrewHaug.com, Birch revealed that the "Not Without My Ghosts" title is something that he "ripped off. It's from this art show in Sheffield. And I was just walking past and I saw it, and I just wrote it into my notes. And I never went in or anything," he said.

Birch went on to say that he wants to make it clear that he didn't come up with the phrase himself. "I'll tell everyone. I don't care about that shit. You've gotta credit people," he explained. "I didn't come up with that, but that did inform the direction for my lyrics. 'Cause I was, like, 'Oh, fuck. That's something I can apply to my past behaviors, my past experiences — everything; past traumas and everything.' One of the lines on one of the songs is 'I have to carry on but not without my ghosts.' That's sort of the overarching theme, I guess, of the record."

The singer, who has been diagnosed with the bipolar II disorder, a condition in which people experience patterns of hypomanic episodes, which are briefer and less severe than full manic episodes, along with depressive episodes, elaborated on the meaning of the "Not Without My Ghosts" for him, saying: "You can help it sometimes. No amount of therapy can excise [your ghosts]. It's sort of discussing how to move forward despite them. So happiness despite trauma."

Last November, THE AMITY AFFLICTION shared a powerful new song, "Show Me Your God", which will appear on "Not Without My Ghosts". Speaking about the single, Birch said: "'Show Me Your God' is the first song of our first self-produced record. The song is the first in a series of explorations and internal meditations on how our past shapes us and interacts with our various mental struggles in the present, drawing from both personal experience and also the trauma of close friends who have passed away or who have dealt with close loved ones passing away."

THE AMITY AFFLICTION will appear at several festivals this year, including Louder Than Life in September and Aftershock in October.

Since emerging in 2008 on the debut "Severed Ties", THE AMITY AFFLICTION has served up two ARIA gold-certified albums, "Youngbloods" (2010) and "Chasing Ghosts" (2012),and earned a platinum certification from ARIA for the seminal "Let The Ocean Take Me" (2014). "This Could Be Heartbreak" (2016) marked the band's second consecutive Top 30 debut on the Billboard Top 200 and went gold in Australia, while "Misery" (2018) elevated them to new critical heights and most recently "Everyone Loves You...One You Leave Them" (2020) showed the band returning to their heavier side and saw the group's total stream tally surpass a billion.