Swedish alternative rock group Statues will release their third studio album ”Black Arcs Rising” in May. Inspired by legendary act‘s such as Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth, the full-length release brings back the imperishable soundscapes of 90‘s alternative rock while showcasing Statues‘ melodic, direct, and intense approach to songwriting. ”Dead of Summer” is the third single leading up to the album, and is released on all streaming platforms together with a lyric video.

Statues on ”Dead of Summer”:

This song describes the future apocalypse of northern Sweden, unclear what it contained. Like most other songs, it paints pictures of what happens after a societal collapse. Our good friend the artist Ludwig Franzén created a series of paintings with a future Umeå as a motif a number of years ago. At first glance, the University Hospital looks normal, but if you look closer you see that roads have been overgrown and survivors who may not still be alive have built passages to avoid the dangers of the ground. His paintings inspired the text that paints pictures of our city, where an unknown external threat wipes out civilization. The external threat can be environmental destruction, capitalism, zombies or aliens – the listener decides.

”Dead of Summer” is available now on all streaming services. ”Black Arcs Rising” will be released May 5, 2023 via Lövely Records. The album will be available digitally and in two color variants on vinyl; transparent green vinyl with red splatter, and solid white vinyl. Both vinyl versions can be pre-ordered now.

Pre-order ”Black Arcs Rising”:
https://freighttrain.se/search?q=black+arcs+rising&options%5Bprefix%5D=last
https://statues.bandcamp.com/album/black-arcs-rising

Connect with Statues:
https://www.facebook.com/statuesumea/
https://www.instagram.com/statuesband/
https://statues.bandcamp.com/

More info on STATUES

90‘s Alternative Rock was never anything else then great pop-songs filtered through screaming guitars. The Swedish based power trio Statues can be filed under your typical SST band. Simple, impulsive, eccentric, and just wonderful. They could be that third band that played somewhere in the midwest together with Hüsker Dü and Sonic Youth during the late ‘80s. Rock has perhaps never been this catchy. Statues are a tornado on a collision course with your hometown.

The indie-rock outfit Statues from Umeå, Sweden has a dense stubbornness as their musical trademark. At the same time, there is unobtrusive security and a sense of dynamics in the group’s tasteful association of tantrum noises and winding melodies. Much of the establishment is unmistakably bottled in an indie-rock and post-punk North American-style tradition, and aesthetic threads of origin are related to a young and hungry Hüsker Dü as well as legendary alternative labels like SST and Dischord.

The trio has been playing together in different constellations since 1991. The red thread throughout the years is that everything has become more and more intense and angry for each year. During the years the members have been heard through bands such as Starmarket, KVLR, and The Vultures. In 2018 everything culminated at the start of Statues. The same year debut album “Adult Lobotomy” was released through German label Crazysane Records. The furious and straightforward expression of the high-intense debut album made it sold out in no time.

”In music it‘s a rare balance to successfully blend politics and fun, aggression with melody. Drawing on some of my fave post-punk influences and classic rock grooves,  Statues debut Adult Lobotomy walks a line like Phillippe Petit across the sky between Twin Towers, gracefully subversive.” /Walter Schreifels (Quicksand, Rival Schools, Youth of Today, Gorilla Biscuits)

In 2020 Statues released their second album “Holocene” on Lövely Records. The band wrote over 40 songs and all of them were short, fast, and extremely intense. The band recorded 11 songs in just three hours. It was the first time in the history for Sandås Silence Studio to repay a band for pre-booked studio time. The entire album was mixed and mastered by Christian Ramirez.

The lyrics and artwork were made before the Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. Although the lyrics give hints of threatful viruses, sinkholes, and total environmental collapse. Perhaps we should borrow the crystal ball from Statues, or just accept that the band already is a part of the future. As best we can know, Statues might very well be the future

Statues began writing and recording new material in 2021. Johan Sellman had written over 20 new songs in just a couple of months and after a couple of covid quarantines the band could finally enter “Svenska Grammofonstudion” in Gothenburg together with producer Christian Ramirez. The new album was mainly recorded live in a furious tempo during 5 days. Doing an album in that short amount of time requires no second guessing, everything that was played ended up on tape, including the bands‘ energy and stubbornness.

Statues are:
Johan Sellman – Vocals, Guitar
Magnus Egerbladh Öberg – Drums
Henrik Wiklund – Bass, vocals