Tom Hunting comments,
“The Years Of Death And Dying started out as a poem, from the perspective of Death, being a thinking entity, always watching and looking for weakness and opportunity to come calling for people. A Grim Reaper story. We were losing legends: Bowie, Cash, Petty, Prince, Frey… the list goes on and on. Then we started losing family members and friends in our own orbit.
Anyway, the title came first, then the poem, which became a song. I shared the lyrics with Gary, who helped inspire me with phrasing to finish it, and the guys loved it. The song is really long, and more legends kept passing right up into the moment Zet was singing it, so I had to keep writing until I had enough to complete the song. We hope you enjoy our tribute to the fallen!”
Literally translating to “an unwelcome” or “unacceptable” person, ‘Persona Non Grata‘ touches on themes of modern societal disgust and degradation. The band gathered at Tom Hunting’s house in the mountains where they produced and recorded ‘Persona Non Grata‘ from three home-built studios. Steve Lagudi was at the helm of engineering while the band enlisted Andy Sneap of Backstage Studios to mix the album.
For the third time in the band’s history, they returned to Swedish artist Par Olofsson to create the album artwork [see below].
‘Persona Non Grata‘ tracklist:
01 Persona Non Grata
02 R.E.M.F
03 Slipping Into Madness
04 Elitist
05 Prescribing Horror
06 The Beatings Will Continue (Until Morale Improves)
07 The Years Of Death And Dying
08 Clickbait
09 Cosa Del Pantano
10 Lunatic-Liar-Lord
11 The Fires Of Division
12 Antiseed
Pre-order Persona Non Grata here.
Oran O’Beirne
www.ovedrive.ie 2021
