SHAI HULUD‘s new album, “Reach Beyond the Sun”, will be released in North America on February 19th, 2013. The title track for the album is streaming online below. Throughout the next few weeks, the band will also be posting candid studio video blogs, new music, and more, so watch out for updates as they are made available.
Reach Beyond the Sun, the fourth entry in Shai Hulud’s storied catalog, will see its release in February of 2013. The album was produced by current New Found Glory guitarist, Chad Gilbert, and notably, vocalist on Hulud’s debut LP Hearts Once Nourished With Hope And Compassion. In addition to producing, Gilbert also returned to sing on the album – his first offering of recorded vocals with the band in over a decade. Not unlike Shai Hulud’s previous releases, Reach Beyond the Sun was born of several years of toiling before ever entering a studio. The band’s previous effort, Misanthropy Pure, a polished, metallic and frenzied piece of masterwork, is contrasted by the much more visceral, instinctively compositional songs found on Reach Beyond the Sun, an embracement of the raw Hardcore/Punk elements that sit at the cornerstone of the band’s influences. Longtime bass player Mad Matt Fletcher asserts, “Anyone who really knows the band will agree this album is our definitive sound, encompassing all of our different influences and styles.” He conclusively reiterates, “Yep, this sounds like Shai Hulud.”
“Shai Hulud comes from the isolated corner of hardcore where a screaming voice has meaning and purpose. (Their) lyrics empower and inspire. A gift of perspective, if not of true insight.” – Nick Pierce / Shai Hulud fan
Lyrically, Shai Hulud continues to evoke deeper thought, and a range of true human emotions practically unique to the band as the modern underground often shies away from depth for fear of the vulnerability of inner exposure. Shai Hulud affirms “True strength is inviolate” in the song “Monumental Graves,” and introspectively queries “Is ours, indeed, a sunless path to waiting graves we prepare for ourselves?” and “Will we bring our hearts back to life?” in the songs “I, Saturnine” and “A Human Failing,” respectively, boldly turning their insides out. Regarding “A Human Failing,” a song about a generation willing to turn numb in lieu of a life of pain and feeling, guitar player Matt Fox comments “It’s become ‘cool’ to be cold. No pun intended.” In the interest of challenging misinterpreted notions of pessimism, the song “Think The Adder Benign” professes “No, I do not believe roses only bloom just to conceal the thorns. I merely accept the thorn pricked finger bleeds” while “To Suffer Fools” maintains the band’s active frustration and misanthropy, a trait by which Shai Hulud are notorious: “Pour the salts of acumen straight into the eyes to recondition the mind.”
In recording Reach Beyond the Sun, Shai Hulud welcomed the vocal talents of accomplished friends from throughout the hardcore community. Fans will note guest vocals from: Jay Pepito (Reign Supreme, Blacklisted) on “A Human Failing, John Vigil (The Ghost Inside) on “If A Mountain be My Obstacle,” Louis Hernandez (Alpha & Omega) on “Man Into Demon,” all officially recorded former Hulud vocalists Matt Mazalli, Damien Moyal, and Geert van der Velde on “Medicine to the Dead,” as well as additional vocals throughout the album from the likes of Justin Krauss (With Life In Mind), Martin Stewart (Donnybrook, Terror), David Wood (Down To Nothing, Terror), among others.
Since the release of Misanthropy Pure in 2008, Shai Hulud has toured Europe, Southeast Asia, Canada, the US, and Mexico. Most recently, the band appeared at the Revelation Records 25th Anniversary shows, both in LA and New York. Plans are already beginning to unfold for 2013, beginning with Shai Hulud’s trek to Australia for the first time as part of Soundwave 2013, which also features Metallica, Blink 182, The Offspring, Slayer, and many more. More plans are beginning to unfold in support of Reach Beyond the Sun, which will invariably see Hulud performing in front of more fans, new and old, than ever before.
Within Reach Beyond The Sun is found the glimmer of hope emerging as a keen perception of reality on a gridlocked battleground of grim pessimism versus unthinking optimism – a conflicting array of swirling thoughts and depth of emotion, honestly illustrating and defining the beauty and tragedy of the human experience. To the backdrop of progressive, metallic Hardcore/Punk, Shai Hulud is thinking and expressing in perpetual forward motion.
Onward and upward. Always. Forever.
Reach Beyond the Sun will be released on February 19th in North America, and February 15th/18th in Europe.
