Armored Saint will release their eighth album ‘Punching The Sky’ 23 October, with the band set to hold a virtual album release show from the Whisky A Go Go 10 October 2020.
The live release show will see the band perform a full set, including four songs from the new album. A Q&A will be held too, with fans encouraged to submit their questions on the bands Facebook page.
The new album, ‘Punching The Sky’, is set to be a hard, attitude driven collection of diverse songs. The video for ‘Standing on the Shoulders of Giants’, which you can see below, was directed and produced by Costin Chioreanu, with drone footage shot by Miluta Flueras and band performance footage by Vince Edwards.
Bassist Joey Vera told MetalTalk: “The goal is to write really good music. I know I’m stating the obvious here but that’s about the size of our agenda.
“We’ve been able to shed a lot of expectations that sometimes plague a band like ours that has been around a long time and we’ve recently moved into a comfort zone with just being ourselves.
“We have this kind of freedom now that we didn’t really have early in our career and we can take some chances and make the kind of music that we want to hear.
“This record is a reflection of where we are at, right now.”
John Bush tells us: “When you’re a band that began four decades ago, you really have to push yourself harder than ever when it comes to making a new record.
“The last thing you ever want is for it to appear as though you were going through the motions or that you’re just putting a product out to do some touring.
“The records are immortal. They’ll be here long after us.
“Every one needs to count in its own individual way.”
Joey Vera worked as producer for the new album. He recruited the same engineering team that worked on ‘Win Hands Down’, with drums recorded by Josh Newell at El Dorado Studios in Burbank, CA, guitars tracked by Bill Metoyer at Skullseven studios in North Hollywood, CA and vocals, bass and additional recordings by the bassist at his studio.
Vera says: “I like working with people that I trust and have a good personal rapport with. That same reason is why I hired Jay Ruston (Anthrax, Amon Amarth, Stonesour) to mix the record.
“It’s important to be able to work with people who understand what the end goal is.”
Vera says he took on too many of the tasks himself, but he says that overall it was a good experience and everyone brought their A-game to the table with the right attitude for getting things done.
He continues: “At the end of the mixing stage, I always have a hard time walking away from the project we’ve been working on for so long.
“It’s hard to let it go. The end result is good though. Everyone played and sang their asses off and it shows.”
With Armored Saint soon to celebrate four decades of life in the Metal scene, Vera told us: “Part of me feels like I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for that long.
“It’s kind of incredible.
“So I feel pretty damn lucky really that we’ve been able to have the support from fans and our record company for all these years. Without this support, we really couldn’t do any of this.
“So this is the big part of what has kept us going and when I stop and look around, I am humbled that we’ve had this opportunity to make music and tour for such a long time.
“That’s what our initial goal was back when we were just 18 years old.”
Punching The Sky
1. Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
2. End of the Attention Span
3. Bubble
4. My Jurisdiction
5. Do Wrong to None
6. Lone Wolf
7. Missile to Gun
8. Fly in the Ointment
9. Bark, No Bite
10. Unfair
11. Never You Fret
