The track tells a bittersweet tale with spine-tingling, grooving choruses before closing with a grandiose blast-beat attack amid a sea of voices.
On the new concept album, listeners join protagonist Phantoma, a Phase 4 / Network Tier 0 unit – model A, on an inspiring yet harrowing journey as she discovers the brutal truths behind the manufactured sheen of social media posturing on a dystopian, near-future planet earth. With the band’s one-of-a-kind blend of power metal, traditional heavy metal, modern prog, and pop sensibilities, ‘Phantoma‘ spins a web of sharp musicality, high sci-fi concept, and important social commentary.
Brittney Slayes of UNLEASH THE ARCHERS says about “Blood Empress”:
“This was the last song that we wrote for the album and we wrote it together in our Airbnb while we were recording. We always like to save one song to write together in the studio to give a kind of snapshot of the headspace we were in while recording, and this one was a ton of fun. We wanted to do a bit more of a radio rock track and have it be something simple that would be a blast to play live and potentially end the set with. The album story ends with Phantoma having destroyed both The Collective and the Human Council that once stood against her, but now she had all of robotkind and humankind looking to her for where to go next.
We wanted the song to feel dark but also triumphant, and to hopefully be catchy enough to make the listener want to start the album all over again. The video was filmed once again by RuneGate Studio and they did an awesome job with finding a set that could parry between both the synthetic and the human sides of the story. We all love this track in UTA and hope that you all can bang your heads to it too!”
Watch the official music video for “Blood Empress” below…
‘Phantoma‘ follows the band’s 2020 breakout album, ‘Abyss‘, which won the JUNO Award for Metal/Hard Music Album of the Year after debuting at #1 on the US Current Hard Music and Top New Artist charts, and was dubbed by Bandcamp as “a mandatory listen” upon release.
Cath the band at this years Bloodstock Festival in August.
Pre-order the album here.
Oran O’Beirne
www.overdrive.ie 2024
