CRUSADES will release their forthcoming album This is a Sickness and Sickness Will End on March 7th jointly through Anxious & Angry (USA) and Countless Altars (Canada/Europe). Countless Altars is Dave Williams of the band’s newly launched label. You’ll be able to grab a British copy via Drunken Sailor Records, while mainland Europe/elsewhere will be covered by the amazing Sabotage Records). CRUSADES will embark on a European tour this spring in support of the release! See more details below.
Tour Dates:
April 28th: Rheine, Germany @ Trinkhalle
May 1st: Brighton, UK @ Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
May 2nd: Durham, UK @ Empty House HQ
May 3rd: Sheffield, UK @ The Lug Hole
May 4th: London, UK @ DIYSpace
May 5th: Antwerp, Belgium @ Music City
May 7th: Mannheim, Germany @ Jugendzentrum
May 8th: Munich, Germany @ Kafe Kult
May 9th: Budapest, Hungary @ Dürer Pince
May 10th: Brno, Czech @ Kabinet Muz
May 11th: Berlin, Germany @ TBA
May 12th: Hamburg, Germany @ Störte
May 13th: Verden, Germany @ Juz
More about the new record:
CRUSADES’ upcoming LP, titled This is a Sickness and Sickness Will End, was recorded in Spring 2016 by Mike Bond at Wolf Lake Studios in Lac-Des-Loups, QC, with additional recording by the band’s own Jordan Bell at Atomic Audio in Ottawa. It was mixed by Matt Bayles (who has worked with a veritable who’s-who of heavier punk/hardcore: Tragedy, Mastodon, Botch, Murder City Devils, Isis, From Ashes Rise, and many other notable artists including Pearl Jam, Deftones, Alice In Chains, etc.) at his own Red Room Recording in Seattle, WA and mastered by Martin Bowitz (of anarcho-hardcore luminaries The Spectacle and brilliant indie-pop outfit Cold Mailman) at Strype Audio in Oslo, Norway.
Musically, the band wanted to expand further upon its earlier output by incorporating more influence from artists whose music is as emotive and dynamic as their lyricism – Cave In, Sunny Day Real Estate/The Fire Theft, Peter Gabriel, Tiamat, Concrete Blonde, etc. – thus broadening song structures with more complex instrumentation and arrangements, coupled with a heavy, vibrant production.
Thematically, This is a Sickness and Sickness Will End doesn’t stray entirely from CRUSADES’ recurring ‘spiritual’ questioning, but this time around, Dave (the band’s primary songwriter and lyricist) chose to reflect on the loss of two parental figures within the span of one year and many of the very human anxieties surrounding mortality that came along with that experience. In addition to his own family’s various coping strategies (from his own atheism to others’ deeply held religious beliefs), he looked to many of his favourite poets’ and lyricists’ own reflections on death and loss (including Felicia Hemans, Lord Byron, Emily Bronte, and Ottawa’s own Archibald Lampman), comparing their written experiences to his own, borrowing a few particularly relevant lines, and attempting to highlight the universality of mortality throughout time and culture.
This is a Sickness and Sickness Will End will serve as a follow-up to 2013’s Perhaps You Deliver This Judgment with Greater Fear Than I Receive It through No Idea Records.
