“N E W H E A V E N was born out of the idea that you’ll never be satisfied with what you have if you don’t define your expectations,” the band offers. “We got together in Atlanta with Johnny Andrews for this one, and he’s a musical mad scientist. We played with religious metaphors, although the song is not about religion. You throw your whole life into something, and then you finally reach the pinnacle and get to pull the proverbial curtain back, but it’s not what you expected at all. So now you need a new high to chase. We did crowd-sourced gang vocals on this one, and it was fun to make that come together.”
As for the accompanying video, the band shares, “This video was sort of a continuation from last music video where in the opening scene you see the Grim Reaper take his hood off to reveal he is now the priest overseeing the funeral. Kia figuratively ‘went to heaven’ and came back after realizing heaven wasn’t what it was cracked up to be.”
CONQUER DIVIDE — vocalist Kiarely Taylor, bassist/vocalist Janel Duarte, guitarist Isabel Johnson, drummer Samantha Landa, and guitarist Kristen Sturgis hail from the U.S., U.K., and Canada and have generated support from BBC Radio 1, Metal Hammer, Rock Sound, SXM Octane, Revolver, Alternative Press, Loudwire, and more. The band will release Slow Burn on September 8 via Mascot Records, pre-order it here, and have now released fifth single “N E W H E A V E N”. The visual is rife with religious imagery but it’s hardly about religion, watch it here.
Conquer Divide will spend the rest of 2023 on the road — supporting Electric Callboy in late August through mid-September and with Icon For Hire in September and through late October.
Slow Burn continues to, well, burn at a fever pitch. Previous single “Atonement” has grabbed nearly 5 million streams, while “Paralyzed ” is over 3 million streams. “welcome2paradise” has surpassed 1.2 million streams.
Slow Burn ushers in a new era for CONQUER DIVIDE, one defined by breathtaking sonic refinement, intensely personal lyrical storytelling, and a seamless balance between hard-hitting modern metal and irresistible melody. Slow Burn is stacked with confessional expressions of vulnerability, frustration, and, ultimately, hope. Each song on Slow Burn summons forth brand new levels of catharsis. There are anthemic hooks throughout the energized songs, addressing social unrest (“system_failure”) and environmental destruction (“welcome2paradise”), with Biblical references (“N E W H E A V E N”), and intensely personal revelations of abuse (“the INVISIBLE,” “Playing w/ Fire”).
They’ve highlighted frustrations and struggles they’ve come across in the music industry on the album closer “gAtEkEePer.” “It’s a giant F U to all the industry gatekeepers who minimize women’s participation in rock and metal spaces,” they say. “Keep your damn gate. We’ll take the throne.”
Momentum has been building. They finished last year touring with Attack Attack!, and slayed the crowd at Welcome to Rockville last month. With the shows have come the hotly anticipated new songs. Three have already previously been revealed from the album, Atonement, Paralyzed and welcome2paradise. They have picked up incredible Spotify playlists on the likes of, The Core, Metal Hits, Kickass Metal, Heavy Queens, Rock Hard, All New Metal as well as several Amazon, Deezer and Apple Music playlists. They will be playing Blue Ridge festival in September, sharing the stage with Sleep Token and Polyphila.
Daniel P. Carter played “the INVISIBLE,” on his recent BBC Radio 1 Rock show and Alyx Holcombe played previous single welcome2paradise on her BBC Radio 1 Introducing show, saying,“We’re gonna go in hard again on Conquer Divide. What I love about this band is the sharp changes of the clean vocals and the screaming and there’s something about the clean vocals that seem really noughties for me, and I adore that.”
