Lucky Number Music

Today, HMLTD return with the announcement of their second album, The Worm – due for release on Friday 7th April. To coincide with the news, the London collective have shared lead single “Wyrmlands” and an accompanying video directed by frontman Henry Spychalski.

Created over the course of two years with a cast of 47 musicians – including a gospel choir and a 16-piece string orchestra – The Worm is less a concept album than a fully-fledged musical universe, transcending genre and medium. Set in a disorienting anachronistic version of Medieval England – as steeped in dystopian sci-fi fantasy as it is folklore and Old English mythology – it’s part political polemic, part deeply moving psychological journey, and finds frontman Spychalski drawing on his own psycho-spiritual struggles to construct a modern parable about the impotence felt by individuals stuck inside gargantuan, labyrinthine systems of power that they are powerless to change.

In contrast to their debut album, the acclaimed 2020 release West of Eden, which explored toxic masculinity and the breakdown of Western society, The Worm is framed as a spiritual quest within a delusion. In that delusion, Spychalski’s shadow self is projected and embodied as a giant worm that swallows England, and which must be slain in order to achieve salvation. The concept came to him in a fever dream back in 2020, before being fully fleshed out with the band’s recording line-up of Achilleas Sarantaris (drums), Duc Peterman (guitar/production), Seth Evans (keys) and Nico Mohnblatt (bass).

Spychalski explains,“We’re told to believe that anxiety and depression are purely material and biological – like a parasitic worm that can be removed with the right treatment. I think that really these conditions reflect the world that surrounds us – like colonies that a far bigger Worm has made in each of us – the psychological havoc wreaked by our inescapable capitalist reality and the looming apocalypse it has created.”

Released today, first single “Wyrmlands” and its accompanying video – directed by Spychalski himself – introduces the world in which The Worm takes place: one where England has been swallowed by The Worm and renamed ‘Wyrmlands’, along the way regressing to a Medieval, feudal society.

“‘Wyrmlands’ tells the story of a guerrilla resistance movement against the Worm” he notes. “The lyrics recount their tales of subversion and subterfuge: counter-offensives, tortured confessions and haunting vignettes of the strange new land in which they find themselves.”

The video is intended to explore the liminal space between the fantasy world in which most of the album takes place (“Wyrmlands”), and the base reality which births that delusion: a violent collision of the real and the unreal; of our delusions and the traumas that create them.”

By conjuring a parable of human struggle and salvation – of a society impotent and festering inside the intestines of a giant parasite – HMLTD visualise capitalist realism and spiritual alienation as a mythological beast. And with its hopeful resolution, this utterly unique exercise in world-building might just help inspire alternative realities, or at least offer a spiritual crutch to all of us within this one.

HMLTD will also play two special live shows at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts on Thursday 18th & Friday 19th May. For tickets, head to the band’s website.

When the plague struck and the yearlong winter began, HMLTD left their home and went into the mountains. There, they enjoyed spirit and solitude, and for the yearlong winter did not weary of it. But at last, the winter thawed, and with it their hearts,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, they went before the sun, and said: ‘I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it.’ And HMLTD descended the mountain. We are proud to share their first piece of new music since West of Eden. ‘Don’t Leave Me’ is born into the world.

‘Don’t Leave Me’ is just one version of the 6400 unique compositions – not trivially different, but each one its very own song – made possible by the band’s dynamic musical artwork, ‘Leaving’. The different layers which make up the composition will go up for auction in collaboration with Async, tomorrow, Thursday 29th April, 4pm UK. Layer owners have the power to change their part of the song, and decide which of the 6400 unique forms it takes. The master song will respond in real time to these inputs, existing as a permanently ever-changing song in a constant state of flux. This song, the first ever of its kind, will be hosted on the Async gallery website for everyone to listen to, as it passes through its metamorphic life. Learn more at Async.art

Plus, on 16th November 2021, HMLTD will be playing their one and only live show of 2021 at Heaven in London: ‘The Order’. The Order is not just a live performance – it is an interactive piece of performance art with audience participation and immersive theatre built into it. Henry Spychalski writes “We have always believed that the orders and systems we live within are purely imagined – on 16 November, we will create our very own imagined order inside the walls of Heaven.” What role you occupy within The Order depends on what ticket you buy for the event – the higher-tier tickets will give you a special ‘authority’ status on the night, complete with an expanded list of rights, privileges and powers within The Order, and a special one-off piece of merchandise to signal your authority.

HMLTD’s debut album, the expansive, labyrinthine West of Eden, is out now. Several years in the making, the daring collection of songs created to incite conversation about proposed new visions of masculinity, the decadence of western capitalism and the violence of insecurity and repression.  Across these 15 tracks the band realise their artistic vision in full technicolour, with all shades of their sonic palette used to create an album that is equal parts lush and abrasive.

The band describe the album thus, “West of Eden is a portrait of a civilization on the brink of collapse. This is the world our generation will spend its lives in, and we somehow need to find love and meaning within it. This album is about the struggle that we will all live, and about turning that struggle into joy.”

To celebrate the album’s release, the band have also shared an enigmatic new video, entitled the “West of Eden Chapter 0: Prelude” featuring a tantalising snippet of new unreleased music, and animated by their frequent collaborator Mike Raymond, who also designed the striking album artwork.

Having returned this Autumn to announce the upcoming release of long-awaited debut album West of Eden, alongside the explosive comeback singles ‘LOADED’ and ‘The West is Dead’, London based five-piece HMLTD today share the stunning animated video for new track ‘Why?’.

The story for the video was written by guitarist James, with its visuals created by Collectif 99°, an artist-led collective and organisation founded by 10 graduates of the Atelier Supérieur d’Animation in Paris.

Of the track, frontman Henry Spychalski says: “A further mirror to the modern world we live in – via exploring the paradoxical loneliness that defines modern, urban life. Set in Tokyo, the world’s largest metropolitan city and with the verse written in Japanese the song talks about being surrounded by people but an ever increased alienation and detachment from surrounding, neighbours and relationships. As the song progresses, the chorus sounds like Japanese but in fact is a meaningless series of vowels and consonants – mimicking the vertigo of detachment. Even when one does communicate. Is anybody really listening, understanding or trying to understand?”

Following their recent return with the explosive recent single ‘LOADED’, HMLTD today announce news of the upcoming release of their long-awaited debut album, West of Eden, due for release on 7th February 2020. You can pre-order and pre-save HERE.

The expansive, labyrinthine debut has been several years in the making; a daring collection of songs created to incite conversation about proposed new visions of masculinity, the decadence of western capitalism and the violence of insecurity and repression. Across its 15 tracks, the band’s artistic vision is realised in full technicolour, with all shades of their sonic palette used to create an album that is equal parts lush and abrasive.

Alongside today’s announcement, HMLTD share the video for brand new single and album opener ‘The West Is Dead’, a dizzying rally call brought to life with the fuzz of a driving bassline, pulsing electronics and Spychalski’s sick croon. Its accompanying haunting visuals envisions a near-future Europe, plunged back into feudalism after total social and ecological collapse. Shot by Niall Trask, it continues the band’s run of thought provoking yet beautiful videos,

Of the track, Spychalski explains: “this is not dystopia, but a mirror up to late capitalism; where we are and where we’re headed. Sick dolphins lap at the tide, the insects have all dropped from the skies and the global economy enters free fall. Ecological catastrophe guaranteed. The West is dead. Atomised, alienated and apathetic”