Sydney sludge/grunge/heavy as fuck duo Astrodeath exploded onto the scene with a clever and unique delivery for their debut self-titled album in 2019.
They didn’t actually release an album as such – not in the traditional sense, anyway – but instead produced a comic book of epic proportions that had a downloadable link to access the album that came with it.
It was a brave and ambitious first strike, but one which cemented Astrodeath as a band for which convention holds little meaning and art circumnavigates more than just music.
Since then the duo – Tim Lancken (Vocals, guitar) and Yoshi Hausler (drums) have toured relentlessly, elevating themselves and their music beyond the novelty realm that generally accompanies anyone that does something unexpected and into a league of their own musically.
Put simply, they are a two-man battering ram hell-bent on destruction, and God help anyone foolish enough to stand in their way.
On the eve of the release of the band’s new single Ceremonial Blood – which will be released on March 2 – Lancken sat down to chat with HEAVY about the incoming song and album that seems destined to follow.
“It’s hard for me to play,” was the first thing he offered when asked about the single musically, “because I’m not a very good guitarist (laughs). Yoshi does a lot of hectic, syncopated drum lines in it. It’s super heavy. It’s probably our heaviest song… It’s definitely our heaviest song to date and maybe our most ambitious. I’m excited to start paying it live.”
While the name of the track is enough to raise concern, the subject matter of Ceremonial Blood is even more confronting – if you believe in aliens anyway.
“There’s a big story that this song belongs to,” Lancken smiled. “Our whole new album is a full eight song storyline – loosely based – that Glenno Smith wrote. That part of the story is a bunch of reptiles, and they are just massacring humans for fun and to appease their God, their reptilian God.”
In the full interview, Tim runs us through the song in greater detail, how it fits in to the story arc of the upcoming album, the musical direction of the new music, once more connecting the body of work to a comic book, writing songs to a set storyline, their upcoming tour and more.
