Texas arduous rock stalwarts DROWNING POOL have launched “Choke”, the second single from “Strike A Nerve”, their first new report since 2016. DROWNING POOL‘s heaviest report up to now, “Strike A Nerve” will probably be launched on CD, 180-gram vinyl and digital on September 30 through T-Boy/UMe.

Although DROWNING POOL incorporates cleaner vocals on “Choke” than on lead single “Thoughts Proper”, the band would not let the addition of melody cease the observe from being a metallic banger.

“‘Choke’ is one other certainly one of my favourite songs off ‘Strike A Nerve’,” says guitarist CJ Pierce. “Musically, we actually wished to push ourselves to extremes on this album and enterprise outdoors our musical consolation zone with a few of the songwriting and enjoying — such as you hear on ‘Thoughts Proper’ — however ‘Choke’ is an ideal mixture of the extra conventional DROWNING POOL model and the muse we laid on the ‘Sinner’ report, and the ever-evolving band that we’ve got turn out to be with [singer] Jasen Moreno. Lyrically, ‘Choke’ comes from a spot the place many people have been earlier than. It is about when somebody has given up on you, put you down, and speaks nothing however phrases of negativity and hate. However like we all the time do, we struggle by means of, we persevere, and we in the end overcome. We’re nonetheless right here, we’re nonetheless thriving, and we’re not going anyplace. We’re robust, and we hope you choke in your phrases.”

DROWNING POOL have lengthy been hailed as champions of blue-collar arduous rock and metallic, not simply due to their persistently incendiary reside exhibits and vastly spectacular catalog, however due to the trials and tribulations which have marked their profession. They don’t seem to be distinctive in that regard. What they’re is resilient, their everyman, working-class ethos and cussed perseverance making a bond few bands ever notice.

“Strike A Nerve” was impressed by carrying life’s battle scars on our sleeves. These bumps and bruises acquired magnified throughout the worldwide COVID lockdowns; lockdowns that began mere months after DROWNING POOL accomplished recording, mixing and mastering “Strike A Nerve”, an 11-song tour de drive by means of the torn and battered psyche of a band. Written and recorded earlier than the pandemic that halted the world in its tracks for greater than two years, “Strike A Nerve” turned extra poignant with its time on the shelf.

“This report is so badass, it is good. It is the 4 of us doing what we do to the perfect of our skills,” stated Moreno. “The band is tight in each method. We’re firing off on all cylinders. We’re on the high of our sport. There are all alternative ways of claiming it, nevertheless it all quantities to the identical factor — the outcomes are simply magic. From the way in which the report sounds, to the writing of it, to the manufacturing, to the look of it — it is only a good DROWNING POOL report. None of us might ask for something extra…”

“‘Strike A Nerve’ is probably the most thrilling and intense music from DROWNING POOL up to now,” added Pierce. “We have stayed true to the core sound individuals know from us, however we have taken all the things we do to a different stage. We have been writing music collectively for over twenty years — half of that with Jasen — and this album is extra refined and extra true to who we’re than something we have completed earlier than. Generally it is heavier than we have ever been, typically it is lighter, and typically we go in a route that surprises even us — nevertheless it’s all the time simply brutally trustworthy, and that comes by means of in each observe.”

“‘Thoughts Proper’ began with the core DROWNING POOL sound, then actually dug into our southern metallic roots,” continued Pierce concerning the LP’s lead single. “This music was written not lengthy after Vinnie Paul died, as a tribute of kinds to him and Dime and a method for us to honor the influence PANTERA had on our native Dallas scene. It is most likely the heaviest music we have recorded, nevertheless it’s the right strategy to shut ‘Strike A Nerve’; just like the title of the music says, all of us have to get our minds proper. We have to see what is going on on round us, arise for what we consider in, and all the time give attention to the larger image. We won’t wait to play this one reside!”

“Strike A Nerve” observe itemizing:

01. Doing Time In Hell
02. Hate In opposition to Hate
03. Keep And Bleed
04. Strike A Nerve
05. Racing To A Crimson Mild
06. Choke
07. The whole lot However You
08. Down In The Grime
09. Rope
10. A Satan Extra Damned
11. Thoughts Proper

The title observe and “Racing To A Crimson Mild” are mid-tempo burners like we have not heard from DROWNING POOL earlier than, the band’s heightened sense of melody coupling with white sizzling hooks and irresistible choruses. “Are you able to hear an empty stage, are you able to hear tomorrow rage… I am unable to go ahead as a result of I am unable to be heard,” Moreno testifies on “Strike A Nerve” — once more, a music written and recorded years earlier than the world careened into its present state. “Keep And Bleed” and “Down In The Grime” are prompt DROWNING POOL classics, their punishing grooves making the jarring and somber ballad “The whole lot However You” much more impactful: “I hate everybody and all the things, however you…” From the softest music the band has ever recorded, to their heaviest in album nearer “Thoughts Proper”, an homage to their hometown mates and brothers PANTERA.

Fashioned by Pierce, Stevie Benton (bass) and Mike Luce (drums) in Dallas, Texas in 1996, DROWNING POOL started as an instrumental trio, named after the 1975 movie “The Drowning Pool”. The group enlisted singer Dave Williams to affix their fold three years later and the band signed with Wind-Up Information which launched “Sinner” in 2001. Williams died tragically on tour August 14, 2002, tormented by hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an undiagnosed coronary heart situation. “Sinner” stands as his solely studio album with DROWNING POOL.

“Strike A Nerve” was produced by Shawn McGhee and DROWNING POOL.