“Rise To Power”, the new album from Michigan thrashers BATTLECROSS, can be streamed in its entirety using the SoundCloud widget below. Due on August 21 via Metal Blade Records, the CD was produced by Jason Suecof and mixed/mastered by Mark Lewis at Audiohammer Studios. Cover art was completed by Hungarian artist Péter Sallai (SABATON, SACRED STEEL).
BATTLECROSS bassist Don Slater told the Detroit Free Press about “Rise To Power”: “It’s just about rising up to break from the shackles. It’s about whatever challenge or obstacle for you to reach some aspiration you want, you have to rise to it. You’re gonna have something that’s gonna try to chain you down or break you. You have to rise to it. So this is about inspiring: Hey, if we can just be a bunch of poor boys from Michigan, getting up there to do what we’re doing and having fun kicking ass, then you can do whatever you want, too.
“There’s a variety of styles on [‘Rise To Power’], as opposed to [2013’s] ‘War Of Will’, which had more thrash, yet still started to show our melodic roots. By the third album, you’ve established yourself, and I’m proud of the groove we established on it.”
From August 21 through August 24, BATTLECROSS will play a handful of CD-release shows before they join up with GWAR and BUTCHER BABIES for a North American tour, kicking off August 25 in Millvale, Pennsylvania and wrapping up September 18 in Rochester, New York. Fans can expect to hear BATTLECROSS classics and the blistering new tracks from “Rise to Power”.
A new BATTLECROSS song, “Spoiled” was premiered in June. Guitarist Tony Asta stated about the track: “‘Spoiled’ kicks in with a heavy rockin old-school vibe and progresses into a brutal more technical feel. It’s also a really fun song to jam.”
He continued: “The subject matter and lyrics of ‘Spoiled’ were inspired by the dependency on modern technology, more specifically the cyber world. An entire generation thrives from its use but does not know what it was like before the internet existed. It IS a great tool, although the magnitude of its impact on our everyday lives sometimes gives me the chills.
“This is the only song I had a hand in writing lyrics for and you can thank the ‘phone-gazing zombies’ for it.”
BATTLECROSS’s new drummer is Bay Area’s Alex Bent. After performing with the band on two headlining tours in 2014 and a trip to South America, Alex officially joined and tracked drums for the new album.
“Rise to Power” track listing:
01. Scars
02. Not Your Slave
03. Absence
04. Spoiled
05. The Climb
06. Blood & Lies
07. Bound by Fear
08. Despised
09. Shackles
10. The Path
Source: Blabbermouth
