photos by Johnny Bohlen
Revolver Magazine is hosting the exclusive premiere of BLACK MAGNET’s video for “Hermetix,” the new single from the group’s second LP, Body Prophecy, nearing release through 20 Buck Spin.
With the 2020 release of BLACK MAGNET’s debut album, Hallucination Scene, a new industrial metal power emerged from the unlikely landscape of Oklahoma City. After anxiously waiting out the pandemic, BLACK MAGNET returned to the road in late 2021 and now prepares to drop the second full-length burst of machine-driven mayhem and electronic deviance, Body Prophecy. Here, mastermind James Hammontree welds the frenetic vitality of post-punk and metal energy with driving synthetic club beats, factory force physicality, and alluringly stark melodic pulses. Tracks like “Floating In Nothing” and “Violent Mechanix” feature both intensely catchy hooks and hammering brutal noise. “Sold Me Sad” is a quietly deranged lullaby that takes an atmospheric turn. The throbbing drug-addled lurch of the Manson/Reznor-esque “Incubate” is, at the end of the album, treated to a completely re-imagined and extended club style remix by scene legend Justin K. Broadrick (Godflesh, Zonal, Jesu).
Performed by James Hammontree, Body Prophecy was engineered and mixed by Sanford Parker at Hypercube Studios (Youth Code, Statiqbloom, Bloodyminded), mastered by Colin Jordan at the Boiler Room (Ministry, Pigface, Eyehategod), and completed with artwork by Jesse Draxler (Nine Inch Nails, Ghostmane, H09909) and photos by Johnny Bohlen. Live, Hammontree is joined by Ryne Bratcher on guitar and Eric Goreman on synth.
For all its harsher, scraping atmospheres and pummeling aggression, Body Prophecy always remains an eminently tight, memorable album molded for the stage and constructed to keep bodies in motion and listeners transfixed.
The “Hermetix” video was directed by Hammontree, who reveals, “‘Hermetix’ deals with the ancient principles of Hermeticism examined in the occult book The Kybalion, among others. The song is about the physical body disintegrating and only the consciousness of the mind remaining. ‘Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates. Nothing stands still – everything is being born, growing, dying – the very instant a thing reaches its height, it begins to decline – the law of rhythm is in constant operations.’ These ideals have created a psychic screen in my mind in which I filter most decisions through. We know our bodies die but know nothing of what remains of our consciousness, except perhaps small glitches we see at times of heightened awareness. Almost all extraordinary experiences stem from these moments and are memorable until our final end. I believe there are ways and techniques in which to expound upon these experiences and use them as powerful tools for the personal development of our own current wakeful consciousness. Principles of the occult, Hermeticism, Mind Power Metaphysics, Psycho Cybernetics, and New Thought contain some of the most useful literary relics of history that seem to be majorly ignored in the times in which we live. Can our consciousness be redeveloped? Are we relegated to the current mental and spiritual systems in which we live? All is the mind, and the mind is all.”
Revolver writes in part, “The fact that it’s being released on the venerable extreme-metal label 20 Buck Spin is a testament to Hammontree’s particularly excoriating and texturally scalding brand of metallic machine music, a style of industrial so heavy and twisted that everyone from diehard Nine Inch Nails zealots to death metal junkies can get behind it.”
Watch BLACK MAGNET’s “Hermetix” video first at Revolver Magazine RIGHT HERE.
BLACK MAGNET is prime listening for fans of Ministry, Skinny Puppy, Godflesh, Front Line Assembly, Nine Inch Nails, Code Orange, Pitch Shifter, Head Of David, Killing Joke, Author And Punisher, Ghostmane, H09909, and Youth Code.
20 Buck Spin will release Body Prophecy on LP, CD, and digital platforms on July 29th. Find digital preorders at Bandcamp HERE and watch for physical preorders to post at the label webshop HERE Friday. Also watch the previously released “Floating In Nothing” video HERE.
BLACK MAGNET will announce bouts of touring throughout this year and next with sporadic regional shows happening regularly in support of Body Prophecy.
BLACK MAGNET Live:
7/22/2022 Ponyboy – Oklahoma City, OK w/ Twin Tribes
8/24/2022 Whittier – Tulsa, OK w/ Un Hombre Solo
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