''Weeping Choir'' is the seventh studio album (and fourth non-collaborative studio album) by the American
grindcore
Grindcore is an extreme fusion genre of heavy metal and hardcore punk that originated in the mid-1980s, drawing inspiration from abrasive-sounding musical styles, such as thrashcore, crust punk, hardcore punk, extreme metal, and industrial. G ...
band
Full of Hell. The album was released on May 17, 2019 and serves as the band's debut release through
Relapse Records
Relapse Records is an American independent record label based in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. It was founded by Matthew F. Jacobson in 1990. The label features many grindcore, death metal, metalcore and sludge metal artists.
History
The label was ...
. ''Weeping Choir'' was engineered by
Kurt Ballou
Kurt Ballou (born February 1, 1974) is an American musician and producer based in Massachusetts, best known as the guitarist for hardcore punk band Converge and for his prolific recording and production work at his own GodCity Studio.
Early an ...
of
Converge
Converge may refer to:
* Converge (band), American hardcore punk band
* Converge (Baptist denomination), American national evangelical Baptist body
* Limit (mathematics)
* Converge ICT, internet service provider in the Philippines
*CONVERGE CFD s ...
, who previously produced Full of Hell's 2017 studio album ''
Trumpeting Ecstasy''.
Writing and recording
Since their last album, several of the members of Full of Hell have moved to different cities. Because of this, ''Weeping Choir'' became the first Full of Hell album to be written without all members of the band in a practice space. This time, guitarist and primary songwriter Spencer Hazard wrote full songs in his bedroom on his own and the band would get together to practice the new material about once or twice a month because of their new "adult" responsibilities.
Hazard says this new approach to writing material resulted in some of their most complex and challenging songs ever created. He said: "This record definitely had parts where I wrote the riff and it sounded really cool, but once we got all together we were like, 'This is in some weird time signature I don't even know how to count it,' kind of thing. Even when we got in the studio, Kurt
allouwas like, 'I don’t know what time signature that is.'"
''Weeping Choir'' marks the second Full of Hell album to be recorded and produced by
Kurt Ballou
Kurt Ballou (born February 1, 1974) is an American musician and producer based in Massachusetts, best known as the guitarist for hardcore punk band Converge and for his prolific recording and production work at his own GodCity Studio.
Early an ...
, guitarist of the hardcore band
Converge
Converge may refer to:
* Converge (band), American hardcore punk band
* Converge (Baptist denomination), American national evangelical Baptist body
* Limit (mathematics)
* Converge ICT, internet service provider in the Philippines
*CONVERGE CFD s ...
, who worked with Full of Hell on their prior album, ''
Trumpeting Ecstasy''. Full of Hell reported that Ballou pushed the band harder this time than before, but ultimately best captured the sound of their live performances out of all their albums to date.
Hazard elaborated: "
n''Trumpeting'' he kind of let us do our own thing. But this time he was definitely like, 'No, do it again. You can do better.' I feel like he was able to get better takes out of us this time."
Composition, sound and theme
For ''Weeping Choir'', the members of Full of Hell drew inspiration from their entire discography. This included drawing elements of hardcore music from ''
Roots of Earth Are Consuming My Home'' (2011), experimental grindcore elements from ''
Rudiments of Mutilation'' (2013) and the death metal influences on ''Trumpeting Ecstasy'' (2017).
The band also attributes their new ability to work in a studio and build a song around an electronic beat (giving "Angels Gather Here" as one example) to their experimental collaborative albums with
The Body.
Spencer Hazard says it was a conscious decision to recall different music styles from all their previous albums.
Hazard elaborated: "With
'Weeping Choir'' I kinda wanted to reel it back and take aspects from every record we've ever done and try to combine it together. That's why there's longer songs, and more like hardcore parts, but still plenty of death metal riffs and straight-up grind and powerviolence stuff."
On ''Trumpeting Ecstasy'', Full of Hell dialed back their noise and electronic influences because that album was book-ended by their collaborations with The Body and
Merzbow
is a Japanese noise project started in 1979 by , best known for a style of harsh, confrontational noise. Since 1980, Akita has released over 400 recordings and has collaborated with various artists.
The name Merzbow comes from the German dada ...
. Vocalist Dylan Walker says they re-incorporated noise and electronics into ''Weeping Choir'' knowing they were absent on their previous album, and because they "wanted to make a well-rounded record again".
The album features several guest collaborations, including performances from members of Insect Warfare,
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his "granite features and brawny physique," he gained international fame for his starring roles in action, Western, and war ...
and
Lingua Ignota. Walker says all the guests invited to appear on ''Weeping Choir'' are friends and artists they respect, and they were initially worried the album featured too many guests.
Kristin Hayter, who performs under the name Lingua Ignota, appears on the album's longest track "Armory Of Obsidian Glass". Hayter said it "was a great pleasure to work on" the song, and that she, "wanted my vocals to provide a counterpoint to all the savagery, to pick up on and accentuate harmonic things happening in the music in an unexpected way. I think the effect overall is chilling, wild, and I'm excited for people to hear it."
''Weeping Choir'' is also considered a companion or "sister"
album to ''Trumpeting Ecstasy''. The two are linked both with inverted album artwork—''Trumpeting Ecstasy'' features a faceless figure with white fire rising to the right, ''Weeping Choir'' features a faceless figure with a black void of smoke rising to the left—and thematically related lyrics.
While the lyrics were intentionally vague and open to interpretation, inspired by bands such as
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra
Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra was a Canadian post-rock band that formed in 1999, originating from Montreal, Quebec. Variations of the name used on the band's releases include A Silver Mt. Zion, The Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & ...
and
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Godspeed You! Black Emperor (sometimes abbreviated to GY!BE or Godspeed) is a Canadian post-rock band which originated in Montreal, Quebec in 1994. The group releases recordings through Constellation, an independent record label also located i ...
, Walker said the two albums are connected to events in his personal life.
Walker said of the connection: "I guess all I can say is that ''Trumpeting'' was like a bubble being popped in my personal life, and kind of like a very moment-in-time record just based on what was going on in the Western world. ''Weeping Choir'' is kind of all that's left in the wake of that; it's definitely meant to be a more sombre record."
Marketing and promotion
Full of Hell began promoting ''Weeping Choir'' with an online stream and music video directed by Cody Stauder for the opening track "Burning Myrrh" in March 2019.
The following month in April 2019, the band released an online stream and Frank Huang-created video for "Silmaril"—a reference to the
Silmaril jewels from
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (, ; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer and philologist. He was the author of the high fantasy works ''The Hobbit'' and ''The Lord of the Rings''.
From 1925 to 1945, Tolkien was the Rawlins ...
's
legendarium
Tolkien's legendarium is the body of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic writing, unpublished in his lifetime, that forms the background to his ''The Lord of the Rings'', and which his son Christopher summarized in his compilation of ''The Silmarill ...
.
The final album track used to promote ''Weeping Choir'' prior to release was an online stream of "Armory of Obsidian Glass" in May 2019.
Full of Hell also released a
Justin Broadrick
Justin Karl Michael Broadrick (born 15 August 1969) is an English musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer and a founding member of the band Godflesh, one of the first bands to combine elements of extreme metal and i ...
(
Godflesh
Godflesh are an English industrial metal band from Birmingham. The group formed in 1982 under the title Fall of Because but did not release any complete music until 1988 when Justin Broadrick (guitar, vocals and programming) and G. C. Gree ...
,
Jesu) remix of the track "Thundering Hammers" through ''
Decibel
The decibel (symbol: dB) is a relative unit of measurement equal to one tenth of a bel (B). It expresses the ratio of two values of a power or root-power quantity on a logarithmic scale. Two signals whose levels differ by one decibel have a po ...
'' magazine's Flexi Series in their May 2019 issue.
The band's first tour in support of the album will be a May–June 2019 headlining North American tour with
Primitive Man and Genocide Pact.
Full of Hell will tour Europe with
The Body in July 2019 and South America with
Rotten Sound
Rotten Sound is a Finnish grindcore band from Vaasa, formed in 1993. The band comprises vocalist Keijo Niinimaa, guitarist Mika Aalto, bassist Kristian Toivainen, and drummer Sami Latva. The band has released eight studio albums and "earned a r ...
in September 2019.
Track listing
Personnel
;Full of Hell
* Dylan Walker – vocals, noise
* Spencer Hazard – guitar, noise
* Dave Bland – drums
* Sam DiGristine – bass, vocals, saxophone
;Production and artwork
*
Kurt Ballou
Kurt Ballou (born February 1, 1974) is an American musician and producer based in Massachusetts, best known as the guitarist for hardcore punk band Converge and for his prolific recording and production work at his own GodCity Studio.
Early an ...
– production, recording
* Ian Jacyszyn - recording
*
Brad Boatright
Bradley Boatright (born 1976) is an American musician, record producer, and mastering engineer based in Portland, Oregon.
Boatright is known for his work as a guitarist and vocalist in From Ashes Rise and The Cooters, and as a mastering engi ...
– mastering
* Mark McCoy – artwork and design
;Guest musicians
*
Kristin Hayter
Kristin Hayter (born June 17, 1986) is an American singer and pianist. From 2017 to 2023, she released music and performed under the name Lingua Ignota (Lingua ignota, Latin for "unknown language").
Her professional music career began in 2017 ...
- Vocals on "Armory of Obsidian Glass"
* Paulo Paguntalan - Vocals on "Silmaril"
* Alex Hughes - Vocals on "Burning Myrrh"
*
Mark McCoy - Vocals on "Downward"
* Limbs Bin - "Aria of Jeweled Tears"
* James Kelly - "Angels Gather Here"
References
External links
Weeping Choiron
Bandcamp
Bandcamp is an American online audio distribution platform founded in 2007 by Oddpost co-founder Ethan Diamond and programmers Shawn Grunberger, Joe Holt and Neal Tucker, with headquarters in Oakland, California, US. On March 2, 2022, Bandcamp ...
{{Authority control
2019 albums
Full of Hell (band) albums
Relapse Records albums
Albums produced by Kurt Ballou