Today, Ripped To Shreds shares “Force Fed”, the second single off their forthcoming new album, Sanshi, out September 27 via Relapse Records. Pre-order the album here.
Bearing all the blood-soaked hallmarks of their hellacious sound, Sanshi is an onslaught of frenetic duelling solos, blasting drums, and van Drunen-esque vocals that further fuse the grit and grime of old-school death metal and grind with the here and now. Helmed by guitarist and frontman Andrew Lee, Ripped To Shreds is as fierce and focused as ever.
Lee comments on “Force Fed”: “In the infinite hells of the afterlife, you will be dismembered, steamed alive, made to crawl through knives, until your soul is purified of earthly sins. Then you’re force-fed an elixir of forgetfulness so that you can be reborn to sin and to be tortured all over again.”
Stream the song here, listen below:
Conceptually, Sanshi sees the band dig into a morbid fixation on death and the afterlife in the context of traditional Chinese folklore. Tracks like the lead single “Perverting The Funeral Rites, Stripped For The Dead” is a song inspired by obscure funeral rites in Taiwan, wherein exotic dancers perform lithe rituals for living and dead alike. Elsewhere, “Force Fed” delves into the legend of Meng Po’s “Elixir of Forgetfulness”, which when drunk by the dead wipes their memories clean before they are reborn into their next incarnation. “Living In Effigy” was inspired by real life tales of photographers traversing remote rural China, taking funeral portraits of the elderly who died in solitude.
Sanshi’s cover art comes courtesy of Lee’s long-term collaborator, artist Guang Yang, and depicts a scene of Yan Luo Wang, The God of Hell, and the dead who must face his judgment in his demonic court.
Tracklisting:
“Into The Court Of Yanluowang”
“Force Fed”
“燒冥紙 (Sacrificial Fire)”
“孽鏡臺 (Visions Of Sin, Mirror Of Darkness)”
“Feast Of The Deceased”
“Horrendous Corpse Resurrection”
“Living In Effigy”
“冥婚 (Corpse Betrothal)”
“Cultivating Towards Ascension”
“Perverting The Funeral Rites, Stripping For The Dead”
“Perverting The Funeral Rites, Stripping For The Dead” video:
(Photo – Christopher Johnston)