We've been working pretty hard, touring for Autumnal for quite a while now. We plan on releasing the final single from it fairly soon, which will take us up to seven singles for the record. I think that's the most for any release we've had, but we want to do this album right since it means a lot to us. As much as we love toying with other genres, like we did on Engines of Decay (thanks for the Birdies nomination for that, by the way!), we feel most at home with our mix of prog rock, post-metal and technical bits. And the lyrics, though we haven't disclosed them and didn't print them in the booklets, mean a great deal to us. We don't plan on disclosing them, but the theme of the album focused on isolation, separation, loss of identity, hives.
For the last single of the album, we plan on debuting the demo for the first song we've recorded for the new album which, if you recall, will be heading in a very strange direction, being influenced a great deal by folk, progressive rock, black metal, and early industrial music. We have a couple ideas for songs and riffs that we're working on, but this is the first complete song we've assembled. Our immediate next album will actually be another entry in the Vapors series of compilations, containing some of the demos we've released recently only on singles. But the new album should follow fairly quickly after that one.
On the topic of the Theosophical Society, we'd like to mention why there hasn't been much news recently. We only finished the albums we recorded as the Grand Society Mk. II recently, the last one being a compilation of the singles-only material entitled Vertigo. We have plans for Mk. III, but we've also never toured Mk. II and have been considering possibly recording new material under that banner, either before or after Mk. III material surfaces. We're rather tired from recording and constructing what amounted to just under 10 hours of material, counting different versions that were released on singles, recorded over the course of several years. The Black Gates are taking a bit of a break right now so that Rick and Jack can finish up the Psychopathologist album, continue work on the new Sisyphean album and work with us on some material for our still-secret project. It still feels a good bit away. More news on that one and why it's been taking so long after we have another meeting with them. On top of this, Herr Fische are in the midst of a long break. They tend to wear themselves out, recording for really long periods then touring extensively. On top of this, the guys in Enoch and us have only recently put out some new studio material after spending about a year on archival releases and want to focus on our bands for the time being. So, Grand Society stuff, while desired and planned, is a good ways off. And general burnout means that new Theosophical stuff is as well.
The Theosophical Society is still together. The guys from Enoch and us exchange emails and phone calls almost daily, we still record in the same studio together and we still have barbeques and stuff together (and with the guys from Herr Fische and the Black Gates). The atmosphere is really good. We just don't want to work on new Theosophical material for the time being. It will come eventually.
- Daniel
