Horror metal poets THE VISION BLEAK reveal the lyric video ‘Weird Tales Chapter IV & V’ as the first single excerpt taken from the one-track album Weird Tales. The seventh full-length of the Germans is slated for release on April 12, 2024.
View the lyric video for ‘Weird Tales Chapter IV & V’
Pre-Order HERE
THE VISION BLEAK comment: “Here is the first excerpt from our new album, Weird Tales, in the shape of two chapters”, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and producer Schwadorf states on behalf of the duo. “This album is a one-track opus of darkness and grandeur that we had wanted to realize for a very long time. ‘Once I Was A Flower’ and ‘The Premature Burial’ resemble centrepieces on Weird Tales. Both deal with death, burial and the grave but at the same time they could hardly be more different. ‘Once I Was A Flower’, which is based on a most beautiful short story by Lafcadio Hearn, is a beautiful gothic piece of sadness and beauty. It tells the tale of a flower and its scent – its spirit – sharing the grave with a young woman that just died. ‘The Premature Burial’ evokes the horror of being buried alive, which is of course based on Edgar Allan Poe’s collection of cases of individuals that suffered this gruesome fate. ‘Once I Was A Flower’ has a very special place in my heart. It was not only the first musical idea for Weird Tales that shaped the concept but it is also simply the most gothic and wonderful poetic short story that I have ever read. It is beautiful beyond words and at the same it conveys our romantic world view of an animated, spirited nature.”
Weird Tales Tracklist:
- Weird Tales
Chapter I: Introduction
Chapter II: In Rue d’Auseil
Chapter III: In Gardens Red, Satanical
Chapter IV: Once I Was A Flower
Chapter V: The Premature Burial
Chapter VI: Mother Of Toads
Chapter VII: The Graveyard By Nyght In A Thunderstorm
Chapter VIII: The Undying One
Chapter IX: Evil Dreams Run Deep
Chapter X: The Witch With Eyes Of Amber
Chapter XI: Canticle
Chapter XII: To Drink From Lethe
THE VISION BLEAK return in grand style: The German duo’s seventh full-length, Weird Tales, constitutes a monumental tribute to the eponymous American pulp magazine and other tales of mystery and dark imagination. The album consists of a single track that is divided into internal chapters, which are each inspired by weird tales, poems, and other literature of horror and the macabre.
The first issue of the original Weird Tales appeared on February 18, 1923. In the magazine’s glory days during the 1920s and 30s it featured groundbreaking works of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Authors such as H. P. Lovecraft, who published several of his Cthulhu myth stories in the magazine, Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian as well as other famous early writers including Robert Bloch, Clark Ashton Smith, and later Ray Bradbury gained Weird Tales a legendary status.
On Weird Tales, THE VISION BLEAK are referring to H. P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith, but also allude to authors that were never featured in the magazine, for example Edgar Allan Poe and Lafcadio Hearn, whose Fantastics And Other Fancies was very influential for this album.
In order to do these eminent authors justice with their homage, THE VISION BLEAK are pulling every register of their enormous musical prowess. The chapters range stylistically from flamboyant gothic rock via dark doom to harsh black and death metal parts – and about everything in between. All the thrilling elements that the following of the duo has come to expect and love is present on this record: the dramatic and theatrical, the harsh and heavy, the melancholic and eerie, and also catchy and symphonic moments. All of this is woven into a dense sonic tapestry, which is held together by a recurring ebb and flow that is reminiscent of classical composition.
THE VISION BLEAK:
Markus “Schwadorf” Stock – harsh vocals, guitars, bass, keyboard
Tobias “Konstanz” Schönemann – vocals, drums
Guest Musician:
Aline Deinert (NEUN WELTEN, EMPYRIUM live) – violin, viola