Desert Storm Release New Single ‘Bad Trip’
Desert Storm is a four-piece progressive metal band, which has been wielding crushing riffs and grooves into earholes around the world for the past 15 years.
Hailing from Oxford, the city of screaming spires, Desert Storm deliver their own unique brand of heavy music. Their sound is loud, punishing and unforgiving, but also woven with elation and electrical ecstasy.
With their new album 'Death Rattle’ set for release worldwide on 31st March via APF Records (Video Nasties, Possessor, Battalions), the band have shared new single ‘Bad Trip’.
Vocalist Matt Ryan comments,
"What happened quite naturally during the writing process for Bad Trip, was something just clicked. The thoughts and emotions associated just felt so familiar. It was an obvious choice at the time. This is a Eulogy about a great man who the band knew fondly. March 2023 marks the tenth year of his premature passing, and so it felt fitting to pay tribute by releasing Death Rattle this month. He was a thinker, was studying philosophy and was a self-professed psychonaut. He joined us on tour in our formulative years and we loved having him on the road.
We admired him and cared a lot about him, has been in our thoughts and our liner notes, but it is high time we immortalised him through song. As we get older, we think about our life experiences as well as his own that he is missing out on. Not able to join us in the journey through life, to see us wed, with families, large milestones and celebrations. He is sorely missed. The title itself refers to a particularly hairy moment in his history where we learned that the intensity of blotter acid is far easier to regulate than that of concentrated liquid acid. It was understood that a single droplet would be sufficient for an intense hallucinogenic experience, however, to mark the final trip of the bottle, somebody decided to lick the glass pipette.”
Watch the video here.
The album was recorded & mixed at the beautiful Woodworm Studios in Oxfordshire by Steve 'Geezer' Watkins. The studio used to be owned by legendary folk band Fairport Convention, and in recent years has seen the likes of Tony Iommi & Rob Halford recording there.
Once the album was recorded and mixed, it was sent to Portland, Oregon, USA for Brad Boatright at Audiosiege to master (Torche, Nails, High on Fire). The artwork is by David Paul Seymour & layout by Dominic Sohor.
In some towns you have a music scene to work with and in others, you have to make the scene around you. Desert Storm built the Oxford scene themselves. Launched into the world in 2007, Desert Storm’s mix of progressive metal and stoner doom was underpinned with a driving, pure rock ‘n’ roll strut. It’s a formula which makes for a reliably arse-kicking band.
After testing the waters with their 2008 self-titled EP, Desert Storm truly came into their own in time for their debut full length, Forked Tongues in 2010; a radically tighter band on said record and finally beginning to capture the force of their live shows. It’s an upward trend that carried through their two follow ups Horizontal Life and Omniscient respectively.
Perhaps that evolution in sound on record is through their consistency in touring. Always taking their wares on the road, operation Desert Storm has been in full effect on tours with the likes of Karma to Burn and Nashville Pussy, as well as when sharing the stage with bands such as Orange Goblin, Weedeater and The Atomic Bitchwax.
By the time of 2018’s Sentinels [APF011], Desert Storm had found a refined sound. More “oomph” driving the power behind the band than in any previous outing, tastier riffs and more viscidity throughout the record, it captured a band at the top of their game; road hardened and ready to get stuck in. Whether it’s the springy, stoner stomp of ‘Drifter’, or the verging on thrash moments seen in ‘Too Far Gone’ or everything in between, this was THE Desert Storm album so far.
But we didn't bet against them topping those heights when the next album came around, and we were right not to do so. 2020's Omens became their piece de la resistance. In 2022 Desert Storm won an HRH Award, in the Stoner Lords category, beating off stiff competition from Black Rainbows, Kadavar and Green Lung.
Unable to tour it due to the pandemic, work commenced on a new record which has resulted in ‘Death Rattle’, their greatest effort yet.
Pre-order the album now - https://linktr.ee/desertstormuk
