Boston-bred progressive, symphonic metal band WILDERUN have just released a brand new single, “Distraction I.” The new track is the second single off the band’s fourth full-length album, Epigone, which is set for release on January 7th via Century Media. Watch the immersive 3D video directed by Miles Skarin, with visuals inspired by the Epigone album cover artist Kim Keever, below.
“Distraction I is the first movement in the 4-part suite that closes the album. Musically, Distraction I is far more straightforward than a typical WILDERUN song and relies more heavily on atmosphere as a means of creating momentum throughout the track. It also is one of the more synth-heavy tracks on the record, utilizing dense tapestries of largely atonal sounds to develop a unique sonic space that is both surreal and expansive. It is the calm before the storm and the sign of things to come,” states WILDERUN bassist Dan Müller.
With Epigone, Boston-bred aural imaginauts WILDERUN take a deeper and darker step beyond their expansive, prog-leaning metal scores that so skillfully came together on 2019’s Veil of Imagination. The result is a record that is at once grandiose, complex, sophisticated and unexpectedly human. “This is certainly a “meta” record for me,” states guitarist and vocalist Evan Berry. “It’s the record that has the most to do with the artistic process.” Indeed, the nine-track-long offering: beginning with the haunting acoustic prelude, “Exhaler” and ending with a twenty-minute, four-part epic composition, “Distraction I-IV”, Epigone is nothing short of a journey into expression and ambition. It has all the earmarks that have made WILDERUN a revelation unto themselves.
“This record has a different kind of inner turmoil than Veil,” says bassist and composer Dan Muller. “So much of that album was focused on the past and reminiscing on the progression from childhood to adulthood, and had a brighter, more flowery texture to it. This one is darker, and to me feels more introspective.” Admittedly, the universal pause and the frustration that came with the onset of a global pandemic of 2020 weighed heavily on the writing. “It was a frustrating time,” says Dan. “Things were starting to move in a direction that we had wanted them to for a while. We had signed to Century Media and were playing bigger shows like the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise. Then, suddenly, it felt like everything was ripped away from us. For me, that made it the hardest record we’ve ever had to write.”
