Washington D.C.’s ILSA returns with their sixth full-length, Preyer, set for release November 20th via Relapse Records. As a precursor to its release, Decibel Magazine is pleased to unveil the band’s new music video for “Shibboleth.”
Writes Decibel, “12-years-strong and counting, D.C.’s ILSA have stacked full-length after full-length of explosive, punk-headed death metal, executed with a consistency and clarity few bands in contemporary extreme metal can match. Across their previous albums ILSA, who rage a death metal full of so much anger you can almost hear the strangle-grips they’ve got on their instruments-that is, for five albums this then-quintet spewed acrid and crusty down-tuned d-beat against god, government, existence — you name it. Now add a third guitarist. And also a pandemic. ILSA the six-piece premiered earlier this month with the release of that doomed sympathy for Judas titled ‘Poor Devil.’ Today we have the pleasure of offering our readers another side of ILSA’s forthcoming sixth album, Preyer… Where ‘Poor Devil’ wrapped itself around you slowly and with suffocating, drawn-out riffs, ‘Shibboleth’ goes right for the throat.”
Comments frontman Orion, “Fuck this shit system and the religious bigots that perpetuate its terror! ‘Shibboleth’ is our explicit denunciation of the true forces of evil at work to undermine civil rights, labor and reproductive justice all around the world!”
On Preyer, ILSA embraces sonic pummeling like never before. Recorded as the world shuttered away in 2020, the band harnessed the fears and uncertainties of troubled times and used these as driving forces for their unnerving metal’s raw, chaotic, and whipping intensity. The result is a new full-length that delivers overdoses of crushing doom and menacing death metal.
Preyer will be released on CD, LP, and digital formats. For physical preorders, go to THIS LOCATION. Find digital digital downloads and streaming services HERE.
The ghost of the Satanic murderer Sean Sellers still haunts ILSA. The notorious killer was the first and remains the only person executed in the U.S. for a crime committed under the age of 17 since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976. “These songs were written with his life in mind,” the band states. “Sean’s story is an exploitative intersection of religious, media, and state authority, culminating in his 1999 execution for murders committed in a state of self-described ‘Demonic Possession.'”
But make no mistake, Preyer is not simply a narrative or concept album. Remaining true to ILSA’s punk ethos, Preyer serves as a cathartic condemnation of a Christo-fascist society, a corrupt class dimension, and the evil cruelty behind it all. “Preyer is a wringing of these themes for the sweat and stink. Power’s destructive force, love, and other extremist positions, religious fanaticism, depression and mental illness, social order, and control.” In the midst of the darkness that continues to take hold, ILSA remain observant and pull no punches. With tracks such as “Poor Devil,” “Shibboleth,” and the album’s title track, the band are poised to release one of the year’s most vicious offerings from the underground.
