Credit: Dave LaPage
Australian metal powerhouse Parkway Drive are pleased to announce the release of their seventh album, "Darker Still", on September 9th via Epitaph Records. "Darker Still" is the band's first album since their 2018 hit "Reverence". Parkway Drive have also released the masterfully cinematic video for the new song "The Greatest Fear", which features the band amidst a breathtaking backdrop that transports you to another place.
"The greatest fear, the one we all share; this song is about the unifying force we all must face - death," says Winston McCall. "The goal was to create a song that saw death not as something that separates us, but as something that connects us all along our path. Musically, we wanted to create a song that lived up to that concept. It's heavy, it's epic and when it stomps it makes an impression.”
"The Greatest Fear" follows the release of the video for "Glitch" in a frenetic exploration of the things our minds experience when we're not awake - but not yet asleep - like night terrors and sleep paralysis.
The band will return to Europe for a headlining arena tour in September and October 2022. The tour starts on September 9th in Leipzig:
9. September 2022 - Leipzig, Quarterback Immobilien Arena (DE)
14. September 2022 - Frankfurt, Festhalle (DE)
17. September 2022 - München, Olympiahalle (DE)
18. September 2022 - Wien, Stadthalle (AT)
20. September 2022 - Berlin, Velodrom (DE)
21. September 2022 - Hamburg, Barclays Arena (DE)
24. September 2022 - Dortmund, Westfalenhalle (DE)
25. September 2022 - Stuttgart, Schleyerhalle (DE)
Tickets are available on this link.
"Darker Still" Track Listing:
2."Like Napalm"
3."Glitch"
4. "The Greatest Fear"
5. "Darker Still"
6."Imperial Heretic"
7."If a God Can Bleed"
8."Soul Bleach"
9."Stranger"
10. "Land of the Lost"
11. "From the Heart of the Darkness"
In the kitchen of Winston McCall's Byron Bay home is a refrigerator decorated on one side with a quote by Tom Waits: "I want beautiful melodies telling me terrible things. ")." That, says the Parkway Drive singer, is a pretty good summary of himself. So is Darker Still, the seventh full-length album to come from this quaint and tranquil corner of north-east NSW, Australia, and so far most important musical statement of one of the most respected bands of modern metal.
Darker Still," McCall says, is the vision he and his bandmates had in their minds ever since a group of friends gathered in their parents' basements and backyards in 2003. Along the way, Parkway have met in nearly 20 years, Six critically and audience acclaimed studio albums (all of which went gold in their home country), three documentaries, a live album and many, many thousands of concerts have gone from metal underdog to festival headliner.
"When Parkway started, we all tried to do more than we could," explains McCall. "What you hear on Darker Still is the ultimate fulfillment of our ability to learn and grow by catching up with the imaginations we've always had."
To understand this growth one must understand Darker Still, both musically and thematically. Those who thought they had Parkway Drive figured out - the unparalleled energy, the high-octane breakdowns, McCall's signature bark - need to reconsider everything they know about Australia's masters of the heavy. Darker Still is the culmination of a transformative time in which Parkway reached new heights of creativity and success, sidestepping the genre's restrictive, safe conventions and abandoning their own self-imposed rules in favor of a far-sighted appreciation of bold new horizons. "There are compositions and songs that we've never tried before -- or, to be more precise, we've tried in the past but didn't have the guts, time, or understanding to make them happen," reveals McCall.
And while Darker Still undeniably remains Parkway Drive, sonically the band rubs shoulders with the greats of rock and metal - Metallica, Pantera, Machine Head, Guns N' Roses - as well as their metalcore peers. The album explores the concept of the "dark night of the soul", i.e. "the idea of reaching a point in your life where you are confronted with your belief structure, your understanding of yourself and your place in the world, to a point where you which it's inconsistent with the way you are as a person," as McCall describes it. Darker Still evolves like the great rock concept albums, from Pink Floyd to Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral. The 11 tracks deal with society's fear of death, isolation and the loss of humanity on its way to redeeming enlightenment.
This is the Parkway Drive that the band has been striving for for two decades. Guitarist Jeff Ling says it best: "I'm really proud of what we've accomplished together and feel like we've ascended to new realms of class and skill as musicians."
This is the true face of Parkway, emerging from the darkness of recent years - redefined and determined, focused in mind and defiant in spirit.
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