It's been ages since I put out a blog, so here are a few updates concerning the band and a note on the forthcoming full length album, including possible lyrical direction.

First of all, we're returning to the live scene after losing Ian for a couple of months to injury. Our next show is Thursday 16th October, supporting Burial, and we plan to do at least one more North East England show before the end of the year. We are also looking to play a little further afield, so get in touch if you want us to do gig swaps.

We will be selling EPs for £5 at shows and we have also talked about getting other merch done, including t-shirts. At this stage, we're still planning the designs but hope to have shirts done soon, which will feature Brooke's excellent artwork which can be seen inside the EP.

Finally, although we're still looking for a label to put it out, we have four songs finished for the album and a fifth one in progress. We may well upload a teaser in the near future, but let me tell you that it's heavier, faster, more technical music than previous stuff we've done, retaining the dynamics and hooks people have come to expect from That Hideous Strength. At this stage it's looking like we'll be recording the album early 2009 and hope that a decent label picks us up before then. It's anticipated to be around 60 minutes long and although we're still toying with ideas for lyrical themes, they will no doubt reflect the struggle to break the bonds of enslavement that bind us to this travesty we call modern society. THS has always been about taking the metaphor C.S. Lewis gave us in the form of fiction and applying it to our real world, symbolically - not the world of fiction that we are told to believe in each day by the media and many other architects of misdirection.

Our debut album will examine the different forms of 'hideous strength' which we have taken to mean many things over the years. We cannot ignore the bigger picture - indeed in our art as well as in our everyday lives - and with an abundance of inspiration around us we intend to leave another timely mark on extreme music, which, more than any other genre, is still weaving new ideas, breaking down boundaries and using its powerful and ethereal ciphers to ignite the minds of those with a passion for unbridled pathos and honesty.

 

The more our cultures are ransacked and our meaning lost in a void of ignorance, the stronger our voices will be.

Stay true,

Chris Walsh

    Send us a message for now if you want to order one for £6.95 including postage and packing, but there will be a link up soon so you can pay via Paypal.

The new recording features four tracks and is over 32 minutes long. We're going to send a few to labels and garner some interest and once the 500 we have had made are gone, that's it. So, get them while they're hot!

Also, we're doing an Album Launch show at Retox night club in Sunderland on the 28th June, so get down there to see us play stuff off the new recording and we're going to be doing a couple of tasty covers as well. CDs on the night will be a fiver each.

T-shirts and more merch will be available soon.

That's all for now, I think.

Walshy

    I know we've been saying it for ages, but it's totally finished and we're just waiting to send it to the plant to get the CDs duplicated. They're going to be a fiver when we release them ourselves and they will feature an 8 page booklet with artwork masterfully crafted by Mr Brooke Johnson.

For now, listen to the low quality samples from The Iconoclast EP and whet your appetites, and soon we will take orders.

We have plans to do quite a few shows this year in support of the new release and we're currently starting to write a full length album tentatively (see what I did there?) due for release early next year.

If anyone out there has any label connections and wants to help us get signed, get in touch. The more people we can approach, the better.

THS

Mr Brooke Johnson, of The Axis Of Perdition, is currently mixing and mastering our new opus, the as yet untitled EP we've been working on for a year.

Brooke will also be doing the artwork for this release, as per our directions, and let's just say you're going to want a copy when it's out.

We're probably going to put two of the final tracks up on the myspace page, but we are also looking into getting a limited run of EPs made professionally, with artwork, lyrics, printed CDs etc. and they will be available through the myspace via Paypal, along with some merchandise to go with the release some time next month.

THS