PRESS RELEASE:
Voices Within
by The Fright
Country: Germany
Genre: Gothic metal
Tracklist:
1.Disbelief 05:14
2.Illusion 02:49
3.Choices 03:33
4.End 04:13
5.Ruins 04:47
6.Miracle 02:47
7.Cold 04:03
8.Lost 01:12
9.Identity 04:30
10.Fall 05:14
releases April 29, 2022
It’s been more than four years since Leipzig’s dark metal act The Fright unleashed an impressive testimony to their awesome musical talent with their album ‘Canto V’. Over the subsequent four years, the world has become ever more complicated and difficult. The social upheavals of our time, the uncertainty of the pandemic, all these aspects have unnerved a lot of bands and artists, even demoralizing some of them irrevocably. Not so The Fright, who appear to draw energy from challenges and have created in their latest offering ‘Voices Within’ a recording that is in many ways contemporary and at the same time impressive in its intensity. Again, the band surrounding frontman Lon Fright has evolved artistically, made meaningful changes in terms of personnel and style, and transformed the general public`s despondent mood into a confident metal statement. ‘Voices Within’ is a reflection on the present situation, but also a reference to the future, an unreservedly positive album despite its underlying melancholia. Or as Lon Fright puts it: “Our sound has changed, it’s a bit more ponderous and bulky, but still contains lots of pop elements and catchy melodies, like a flower growing from a lava rock. ‘Voices Within’ is an album to heal the kind of adolescence where you lose sight of life’s beauty.”
There’s a number of reasons for The Fright's recent development, one of them being a major reshuffle: Guitarist Chris North is new to the band and now forms, together with Lon Fright, The Fright’s compositional backbone, significantly shaping the new record with his powerful and earthy guitar style. Chris North has his roots in black metal and, with his great musical skill, contributes a wider range of sounds and styles to The Fright. His riffs and power chords are a perfect foundation and at the same time the atmospheric field of tension for the vocalist’s anthemic vocals. “Compositionally, I´m more of a preppy type,” winks Lon Fright, “but through Chris I got into black metal. His guitar parts have opened up a lot of new possibilities for us. ‘Voices Within’ unmistakably benefits from that aspect.”
Lon Fright is referring to songs such as ‘Identity’ with its uncompromising heavy riff, ‘End’ which even has a shoegaze reference shimmer through the cleverly woven tremolo guitar, and especially to the album’s finale ‘Fall’, the culminating climax of a recording that is captivating from the first to the very last note. ‘Fall’ presents The Fright from their solidly metallic side, with heavy doom attacks and great lyrical depth. Lon Fright: “It`s about elbow mentality and restlessness, about people you hurt on your way to the top. I say if the only way to get to the top is through ruthlessness, then I`d rather fall and never get up again.” In addition to a number of new stylistic devices, however, there are also typical The Fright tracks on ‘Voices Within’, such as the first single release/video clip ‘Choices’ (due out on 18 February 2022) with its confidence in the countless opportunities that life offers: “The lyrics are about becoming aware of the finite nature of life, because without that finite nature, life makes no sense.” ‘End’, the second single/clip to be released from the album, will be available from 1 April 2022. Finally, and parallel to the album release on 29 April 2022, the cycle of singles/videos will be rounded off by ‘Illusion’ and its search for the child within every one of us.
The album was recorded at the band’s own Dead Road Studio, the drum parts were once again contributed by Yannik “Rage” Fleming, Marie-Christin Herberg made a guest appearance on the piano, Disillusion mastermind Andy Schmidt was enlisted for the editing and fine-tuning of the synths, and audio engineer Dennis Koehne was in charge of mixing and mastering. The album is complemented by an unusual album cover: The original 1 x 1 metre painting by Leipzig artist Benjamin Sprunk aka ‘Xin1 Art’ reveals a special feature only at second glance. This phenomenon, however, is programmatic in every sense, for who can predict what kind of (metal) light ‘Voices Within’ will cast on The Fright when seen from a future perspective?
