NYC’s Chain Gang Grave have downsized from a four-piece to a duo, and they’re back with Cement Mind, their first release since the 2017 “We Fight Entropy” / “Suffer For Your Art” single and first album since 2015’s Bury Them and Keep Quiet. The new album combines the harsh, venomous sounds of black metal with the attitude and energy of hardcore punk, and one of the band’s fans is a legend in the world of metal/punk crossover, Eyehategod frontman Mike IX Williams. He says:

The untidy sounds coming from Chain Gang Grave are an assimilation of the band’s name itself, a sum of its parts broken down to the frayed and sizzling circuitry. There’s an unstable balance of lurching heaviness here, but far from typical or cliched… The band delivers dissonant rock structures with a jagged melody built underneath the smell of burning hair and thrift store perfume. These elements are placed on the coveted top shelf along with other valuable anti-trophies as a glaring warning, and a prize, to future cave dwelling primitives…

Speaking about the new album, guitarist/bassist/vocalist Andrew Lanza says, “The album is split between the political and the personal. Some songs address the failures of the government and how poisonous far-right politics and conspiracies are, from the ground up. Other songs are attempts at verbalizing thoughts and feelings about confronting and overcoming mental illness.”

The record comes out Friday, April 16 (pre-order), but you can hear it now; we’re premiering a full stream in this post. Listen and check out two videos from the album below…