Ten years ago today, Eighteen Visions played what many thought would be the final show of their career. They thanked the packed-house crowd at Chain Reaction in their hometown of Orange County, CA, walked offstage and never looked back. A decade later, the seminal metal band has reformed, signed with Rise Records and are announcing a June 2 release for their long-awaited new album, XVIII.
The band is giving fans a sneak preview of the disc with today’s release of lead track/video, “Oath” which can be seen below! “Oath” is available as an instant download when pre-ordering the album – for info, click HERE.
Eighteen Visions will perform “Oath” live—along with a plethora of fan favorites and new songs—onJune 2, when they take the stage for the first time in ten years for a record release show at The Observatory in Orange County. Click HERE for tickets.
XVIII, the reunited and reenergized band’s first new album in over a decade, is both mission statement and battle cry. It’s a blistering, dense, and diverse album. Recharged and newly partnered with Rise Records, 18V sound liberated from the expectations of the outside world and driven only by their own personal and artistic directive. This is the album promised by the raw alchemy of every other Eighteen Visions record. The unrelenting force and unashamed ambition that fueled every stylistic incarnation of this always evolving and never boring band: it’s finally fully realized in the sound of XVIII. The album was made at home in Orange County, with U.K. transplant and multi-instrumentalist producer Mick Kenney at the helm. His close relationship with the guys in the band (vocalist James Hart, guitarist Keith Barney and drummer Trevor Friedrich) lent itself to the most fully realized recording in their discography, emphasizing every strength of 18V’s unique arsenal. Among the album’s many highlights is “Live Again,” a moving tribute to bassist Mick Morris, who passed in 2013, “Picture Perfect” a super heavy, dirgy assault on fakery and wolves in sheep’s clothing, dripping with menacing melody and “Fake Leather Jacket,” a Molotov cocktail tossed at the music industry, threatening and staunchly confident.