The artwork and design for Plague called huMANity is complete! Above is a preview of the beautifully grotesque cover art designed by our friend and favorite artist Paul McCarroll. We wish we could show you everything Paul designed for the album, but we don’t want to spoil all the surprises just yet. All we can say it that Paul did an amazing job collaborating with us to make Plague a wonderful album to behold, plucking fragments from our imagination and manifesting them into something visible and real. The cover image is entitled “Nyx” and represents the main character of the story behind Plague called huMANity.

We are very grateful for the *mostly* positive responses from people who have previewed the two songs we have posted online from the album so far. We knew from the start that there would be those who simply “don’t get it”, and will only bother to dig skin deep on a low bit rate MP3 preview before hurling stones because it is a different beast of which they do not understand. But the majority of you seem to have open minds and are already deciphering the albums musical direction, picking up on what we were putting down. Many thanks to those who have taken the time to tell us you enjoy what you have heard thus far, and will be buying (or have already pre-ordered) the album. It means a lot to us.

We wanted to do an album that reflected our earliest Electro-Industrial influences, yet at the same time, avoid dipping into that retro gimmicky area some bands fall into. We wanted to dip into our own personal nostalgia and interpretation of “Old School Industrial”… the music that not only helped shape our sound, but shaped who we are today. What we did NOT want to do was reinvent the wheel. We wanted to find the fulcrum… the balance point between past and present. It was a tremendous challenge.

The second major challenge behind this album was trying to take the story we conceptualized, and translate it into a musical album. Every song on Plague called huMANity is a chapter of a story based loosely on the mythology of Pandora’s Box, which follows the character of a homeless girl named Nyx, who while living as a street whore, undergoes some really heavy shit. The album begins as Nyx lays dying in an alley after being severely beaten and raped, overlooked and ignored by those that pass her by. On the brink of death, she begins to hear voices beckoning to her from inside her mind. Following the voices, they lead her to a box buried inside the recesses of her psyche, containing but a single spark of divine fire… a trojan horse implanted by Prometheus seeping with the powers of the Gods. By tapping into this spark and letting the fire consume her, Nyx is able to cheat death and become a demigod; the Mother of Abominations. Burning with rage and the desire for revenge, she unleashes her new found powers upon all of those who ever used and abused her. She then sets out to confront and destroy the one responsible for all of the evil and corruption in the world; the Goddess Pandora. Nyx hopes that if she can overthrow Pandora and close her box of Plagues, she can save humanity from total corruption…

You will have to listen to the album for the entire tale, paying attention to the lyrics for guidance. This is our most vocally heavy album so far and it will require your full attention, along with an open mind and an open ear. Plague called huMANity has many secrets and surprises to reveal. Official release date: March 3rd. Pre-orders available from Crunch Pod here: http://www.crunchpod-distro.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=463