HERAKLEION: New Orleans Death Thrash Trio To Release Necroverse EP September 13th; New Video/Single Now Playing + Shows Supporting Goatwhore To Commence Next Month

New Orleans, Louisiana-based death thrash trio HERAKLEION will release their punishing new EP, Necroverse, on September 13th!

Thousands of metal albums will be released worldwide this year. Necroverse sounds like none of them. With an obsessive dedication to a bygone era, HERAKLEION set out to make their second studio offering the hard way. “We didn’t want to use any digital or computer assistance at all,” notes drummer Speed Wilson. “It was important that we did it the way bands used to do it; live, to tape, without a click. The record needed to sound like a band, not a collection of perfectly placed blocks”.

To accomplish this, they enlisted producer Pete deBoer (Blood Incantation, Devil Master, Spectral Voice) to oversee an entirely analog production. For six days in October of 2023, deBoer tracked the band live at Sonic Ranch Studios in Tornillo, Texas, like it was 1989. The recording was done on an API Legacy Plus, a Studer 24-track tape machine, and a full complement of analog outboard gear. “The goal was to make a recording that sounds closer to what’s in our record collections, than to what records sound like now.”

The results achieve what HERAKLEION intended. Necroverse spews forth five tracks of living, seething death thrash that serves as the listener’s vessel from the world of mortality into the realm of the dead. It is wholly out-of-step with the current trends in metal. Thematically, these songs don’t focus specifically on death, but more so on the morbid curiosity that humanity has with the moment where one crosses over into the realm of death. Each song touches on a different instance that attempts to rationalize that moment where life ceases and the journey through the realm of death begins.

In advance of the EP’s release, today the band unleashes first single, “The Tomb.”

Elaborates Wilson, “‘The Tomb’ was the first song written for what ended up being the Necroverse EP. We were intentionally writing something slower, since all we had up to that point were fast songs. During this time, I was re-reading the short story of the same name. It all came together quite quickly. Maybe a couple days, total.”

Watch HERAKLEION’s video for “The Tomb” at THIS LOCATION.

HERAKLEION’s Necroverse EP, which features cover art by Noah Meihoff, will be released on CD, LP, cassette, and digital formats. Find preorders at the HERAKLEION webshop HERE or Bandcamp HERE.

Necroverse EP Track Listing:

What Is, Was, And Will Forever Be
The Tomb
Where Crows Dare Not Go
Blood Of Nessus
Into… Necroverse

HERAKLEION – named after an ancient Egyptian city that was thought to be a myth, but was actually discovered underwater in 2000 – was forged in 2020 when drummer, Speed Wilson, met guitarist/vocalist, Apollo Xydias. Bassist, Christian Woerner, rounded out the lineup in April of the following year. Influenced by the likes of Morbid Angel, Pestilence, and Voïvod, the band spent the Summer writing and tracked what was intended to be their first demo. Duane Simoneaux (Crowbar, Down, Exhorder, Eye AM) of OCD Recording And Production was brought in to mix and master those tracks, which saw release as the band’s debut EP, Curse Of Eternity, in February 2022. Metal Plague crowned the offering, “a ferocious blast of death-infused thrash that makes many a metalhead sit up and take notice,” while NOLA’s Paranoize observed, “HERAKLEION’s gritty brand of death thrash somehow simultaneously melds classic, blackened style with a fresh take on the genre.”

Since that time, HERAKLEION has been booking itself across the Southeast US to promote their debut, including a handful of small tours with Goatwhore and Skeletal Remains. HERAKLEION will open the first leg of Goatwhore’s North American tour this 8/with additional dates to be announced in the weeks to come.

HERAKLEION w/ Goatwhore, Vitriol, Thantifaxath:
8/09/2024 Chelsea’s Live – Baton Rouge, LA
8/10/2024 House Of Rock – Corpus Christi, TX
8/11/2024 Paper Tiger – San Antonio, TX
8/12/2024 Cheapsteaks – Dallas, TX
8/13/2024 Lowbrow Palace – El Paso, TX
8/14/2024 Launchpad – Albuquerque, NM
8/15/2024 89th St Collective – Oklahoma City, OK **
8/16/2024 Growl Records – Arlington, TX **
8/18/2024 Kick Butt Coffee – Austin, TX **
** HERAKLEION only

“HERAKLEION is fucking great! They are the future.” – Snake, Voïvod

“Young bands like these are the future in thrash metal.” – Kyle Thomas, Exhorder

“The Tomb” Single; Cover art by Ian Miller