Photo by Chris Klumpp
Moon Healer, the latest full-length from experimental/progressive death metallers JOB FOR A COWBOY, shattered Billboard charts upon its first week of release, earning the #13 position on the Current Hard Music Albums chart, #7 on the Current Rock Albums chart, #7 on the Current Digital Albums chart, and more! See the record’s global chart positions below.
United States:
#13 Current Hard Music Albums
#7 Current Rock Albums
#7 Current Digital Albums
#7 Digital Albums
#9 Record Label Independent Current Albums
#18 Internet Albums
#22 Current Album Sales
#29 Album Sales
#38 Vinyl Albums
Canada:
#2 Hard Music Albums
#9 Top Current Albums
#11 Top Canadian Album Sales
#19 LP Vinyl Albums
#12 Current Digital Albums
#14 Digital Albums
United Kingdom:
#17 Rock/Metal Albums
#43 Independent Albums
Austria:
#9 iTunes Top 10 Albums daily
Released on February 23rd via Metal Blade Records, JOB FOR A COWBOY’s Moon Healer marks the iconic outfit’s first new full-length in a decade. Like the band’s critically adored, 2014-released Sun Eater offering, Moon Healer is musically multifaceted, unabashedly brutal, and compellingly conceptual. Featuring a newly refreshed and reinspired lineup of frontman and co-founder Jonny Davy, guitarists Tony Sannicandro and Al Glassman, bassist Nick Schendzielos, and drummer (since 2020) Navene Koperweis, the band seamlessly picks up the mantle where Sun Eater left off.
Compared to past offerings, Moon Healer is as bone-crushing as JOB FOR A COWBOY has ever been. But it’s more consistent and conceptual, composed with the utmost enthusiasm and confidence. “The evolution of our sound has become a big part of the band,” Davy says. “As we mature as musicians, our tastes and interests naturally expand. With age comes more experience and ideas that we wouldn’t have considered in our earlier years.”
When discussing the lyrical genesis of songs like “Grinding Wheels Of Ophanim,” “Into The Crystalline Crypts,” and “Beyond The Chemical Doorway,” Davy’s writing gets cryptic and elliptical-sounding, part Philip K. Dick, part Timothy Leary. “I envision this as a death metal album born from the mystical confines of an alchemist’s laboratory. The music acts as potent potions, inducing hallucinogenic journeys that unlock the secrets of the universe.”
Moon Healer was produced by Jason Suecof (Death Angel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Deicide) at his Audiohammer Studios, mastered by Ermin Hamidovic at Systematic Productions and includes artwork and layout by Tony Koehl at Sketch the Soul. It’s also the first JOB FOR A COWBOY album to feature session drummer Navene Koperweis (ex-Animosity).
Moon Healer is available on CD, vinyl, and digital formats. Preview and purchase the record at metalblade.com/jobforacowboy.
Watch JOB FOR A COWBOY’s videos for “The Agony Seeping Storm” and “The Forever Rot” – both directed by Kyle Lamar, Nick “Shinz” Schendzielos, and Jonny Davy – and “Beyond The Chemical Doorway,” directed by Chris Klumpp at The Vagrant Key, at THIS LOCATION.
“A decade later, they continue their celestial journey into extreme prog with Moon Healer… Because of the album’s ever-shifting kaleidoscopic compositions, there aren’t no-brainer singles – and the album is better for it. Down to the final death march of ‘The Forever Rot,’ it’s a record that largely eschews the familiar and challenges the listener to keep up.” – Decibel Magazine
“…one of the best, most perfectly balanced technical death metal albums I’ve ever heard, an instant classic all but guaranteed to stay in regular rotation for quite some time.” – MetalSucks
“…full-on death metal for nerds, and it’s hard to deny how solid it is.” – Metal Injection
“Until now, the band’s creative apex has been Sun Eater… Moon Healer reaches its predecessor’s high-water marks in every regard.” – Blabbermouth
“In a world where bands such as Horrendous and Tomb Mold have redefined the bar for what a progressive death record can be, for JOB FOR A COWBOY to come back and stand toe to toe with them is astounding. At times it really does feel that a twisted, eldritch moon with a twisted visage will be plummeting into the earth at any moment. This is not only a worthy successor to Sun Eater, it’s a record that will take its place in the upper echelons of modern death metal.” – Distorted Sound
“Moon Healer is the second part of a dark, surreal concept created by JOB FOR A COWBOY that began with 2014’s Sun Eater. Except this time, it’s more crushing, consistent, and razor-sharp. A transformative journey into the psyche, a sprawling adventure into the weird, the brutal and the unknown.” – This Day
In Metal
“…the band’s most challenging, and most rewarding, work of their entire, almost twenty year, career…” – No Clean Singing
“A joy for tech-death lovers and those that admire the experimental side to heavy music that’s not all trudging chugs and pinch harmonics, this feels the start of renewed justice for the band that ultimately got this reviewer into death metal in the first place.” – The Soundboard Reviews
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