Indianapolis metallic hardcore band Church Tongue, whose guitarist Nicko Calderon is also in Knocked Loose, have signed to Pure Noise (also home to Knocked Loose) and announced a new EP that features three cool guests: Deafheaven’s George Clarke, Initiate’s Crystal Pak, and Twitching Tongues/God’s Hate’s Colin Young. First single “Bury Me (One Thousand Times)” doesn’t feature any guests, but if what you’ve read so far has already piqued your interest, you’re gonna be into this. The EP’s called You’ll Know It Was Me and it comes out on February 14 (pre-order). Check out the new song and read the announcement below for much more background info on this EP…
Tracklist
Heart Of Darkness
One Hand Wrapped Around The Sun
When It Betrays (feat. Colin Young)
The Fury of Love (feat. Crystal Pak)
Bury Me (One Thousand Times)
You’ll Know It Was Me (feat. George Clarke)
EP ANNOUNCEMENT (via press release):
”You’ll Know It Was Me is a short record about love. Love looks like a lot of things, and each track touches on it in its own way.” says Mike Sugars. “People close to me have heard about me wanting to make this kind of record for a long time. I just hadn’t grown enough to realise the dream of it, and I knew it had to be a Church Tongue record. I’ve been with this band, these guys, for the majority of my life now. I’ve made records with other bands, and so have the other guys, but this idea felt sacred to my beginnings. I knew this record was in us, was who we are, and I’m honoured to have made it with my brothers.”
From the second that “Heart Of Darkness” kicks off You’ll Know It Was Me, the new EP from Church Tongue, it sounds like that’s exactly where the Midwest band have journeyed for this record’s inspiration. Across its six songs, brutally abrasive guitars mix with vicious, guttural vocals, riff after punishing riff. Each track sounds like being stuck inside a nightmare, only to be violently ripped from it when it ends. But there’s no respite—before there’s even time to take a breath from the harrowing dream state, you’re plunged immediately into a new one. But sonic appearances can be somewhat deceiving. The band—vocalist Mike Sugars, guitarists Nicko Calderon and Chris Sawicki, bassist Jack Sipes and drummer Kyle Spinell—actually describe You’ll Know It Was Me as a “a short record about love that each track touches on in its own way.”
“Thematically,” explains Calderon, “Mike wanted to write about the different kinds of love and the different ways that you can love—for example, loving yourself enough to end a toxic friendship, or loving yourself enough to become sober. And the very last song is quite literally a love song for him and his wife, about how if he dies before her, he will haunt her forever.”Church Tongue have also added to their arsenal on this EP. Three of these songs feature guests who help transform them into something even more formidable than they’d otherwise be. “When It Betrays”, a song about Sugars’ (relatively) newfound sobriety, contains an eviscerating and pulverizing appearance from God’s Hate drummer and Twitching Tongues vocalist Colin Young. The band gave him free will to write lyrics for his own vocal parts, and what came back included a line from Twitching Tongues’ “Feed Your Disease”. “When he sent his part over,” remembers Calderon, “and we heard and read the “Feed Your Disease” line, we just couldn’t believe that he was gracing us with it. We’ve been fans of God’s Hate and Twitching Tongues for a long time, and actually took a lot of inspiration from Twitching Tongues with this EP, so we didn’t feel worthy. We feel like it should go to somebody more deserving. But we are very thankful for it.”
The guest appearances didn’t stop there. Initiate vocalist Crystal Pak lends some caustic screams to the crescendo of “The Fury Of Love”, ramping up the hypnotic intensity of an already incredibly intense song. “It’s the most ambitious track on the record,” says Calderon. “We do this long brooding minute-and-a-half of the same riff over and over again, which is a nod to Converge, and Crystal really nailed her guest spot on that. She’s amazing, as are her voice and her band.”
There’s also Deafheaven’s George Clarke, who adds his devilish mark to the ominous fire of “You’ll Know It Was Me”—that song for Sugars’ wife, which might possibly be the most disturbing declaration of love ever committed to tape. It was also originally written by Calderon to be a Knocked Loose song, who had just been touring with Deafheaven in the UK.
“George was actually the first guest that I asked,” remembers Calderon. “Knocked Loose had just finished our Deafheaven tour in the UK, and around then I’d asked him. I couldn’t believe that he said yes. And then we were like, ‘Well, George said, yes, so maybe we can ask all these other people that we had in mind!’ We shot for the stars and it just clicked and worked. It’s very exciting.”
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