On Friday July 28th at 7 pm, From Ashes to New hosted a listening party for their highly anticipated album Blackout. Fans new and old alike have been waiting for over two years to finally hear the band’s 4th full length album. While four songs from the album have already been released (“Heartache,” “Nightmare,” “Until We Break” and “Hate Me Too”), the unheard songs are just as great as these ones. In between songs, the band members, comprised of Danny (clean vocals/screaming), Matt B. (rapper), Lance (Bass), and Maty (Drummer) shared their thoughts and behind the scenes on the songs. They also took the time to answer questions from the fans in the chat.
While all the songs are pure From Ashes to New, the lyrics are where the band really shine, highlighting the feelings many of us faced in the years since COVID. During the live event, Matt said that he’s always a bit nervous on presenting art to people because unsure of what fans will think about it. This album he was confident the fans would love and was not nervous about releasing.
For this album cycle, each band member got out of their comfort zone to push themselves artistically on the album. While all the band members are talented in multiple areas, Matt joked that the only thing Danny can’t do is rap. Maty specializes in drums, but can also play the piano and a bit of guitar. Lance is the lead guitarist of the group, but don’t let that fool you: he can also play the piano and sing. Rapper extraordinaire Matt can also play guitar and piano. In fact, “Until We Break” is the only song on the album that Matt doesn’t rap on, and he plays the guitar instead.
The first song played off the album was “Hope Your Happy,” which Lance said checks all the boxes for any emotion and is one that you can listen to 24/7. From here, the song moves to the next song on the album, “Barely Breathing.” While it’s a bit slower than the other songs on the album, it still has those hard-hitting lyrics the fans love about the band.
Before the album release, Matt was on the Octane Takeover show and said “Dead to Me,” the sixth song on the album, is a song that represents people in our lives that we never want to see or think about again. He went as far to say that for most people there is more than one person we feel this way about. With lyrics like “So get the fuck out of my life / You don’t have to die to be dead to me inside,” it’s a song that makes you FEEL the anger behind the lyrics.
The next song of the event was “Monster in Me,” and it also happens to be my favorite off the album. This one also happens to be Matt’s favorite off the new album and it’s no surprise as he’s always been open about the demons that torment us, which is what this song is all about. Not only does this shine lyrically, but the music also highlights the incredible talent of the band. With a touch of synth wave sounds, it happens to be one of the heaviest songs on the album with Matt coming out swinging from the very beginning.
In addition to being known for songs about mental battles, the band has also been vocal about the challenges that society has faced since the beginning of 2020. Many of the songs represents the frustrations and uncertainty that came from that time, and “Echoes” is one that highlights these struggles. During the event, Matt mentioned that society has way more in common than the media portrays. With lyrics like “I’m tired of screaming / no one is listening,” the song emphasizes how it feels everyone is screaming at each other without listening to the other side and finding that common ground. It’s also the last song they recorded in studio, and has little easter eggs throughout, such as Danny beatboxing in the background and pulsating bass with 80’s electronic/rap sounds, courtesy of Lance. Matt mentioned the bridge brought back influences from the Panic! album that brings that familiar yet new feel to the album.
When creating the name for this new album, it was almost named after the song “Armageddon,” but the band ended up going with Blackout, which one fan pointed out is a lyric in this song. It’s a nice balance between feeling like everything is burning down around you, but with a message of hope that we can overcome the madness. Another song inspired by society’s demise during COVID, it’s about destroying ourselves and being divided on petty things we shouldn’t be divided on. Matt B. reiterates that we have a lot more in common than we think.
Next on the list is “Legacy,” which started the pirate theme in the studio. They used the window as a white board to write out song names and they started saying them in a pirate voice while recording this song. I can only imagine the chaos that ensued when this happened!
“Broken by Design” is one that had me bopping my head from the very beginning. It almost didn’t make it into the album because there were so many moving parts to it. The band stated the inspirations for this song is the meme where the dog is sitting at the table drinking coffee while the building’s on fire saying “everything’s fine.” It represents our dive into a happy place in our mind to ignore the mess that’s been created around us; it’s the train wreck that we see right now: you can’t look away and it puts us in a state of mind of “ignore it because we can’t fix it.”
“Follow the leader / into the fever” from “Until We Break” was directly about COVID where no matter what leader we followed, it was like following the pied piper. “Smile for the camera / swallow the dagger” means we put on a fake smile for the camera all the while being miserable once the camera shuts off.
The other three previously released songs were played after this one, and was wrapped up by the band thanking all the listeners and stating how stoked they were to finally have the album out for everyone to hear. After listening to the album multiple times since it’s released, it’s clear that, as they expected, From Ashes to New will be the leaders of the nu metal revival.
Catch From Ashes to New on Part 1 of their Blackout headlining tour starting in November! Get tickets and VIP here: TOUR | From Ashes to New!
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