Austin, Texas-based music genre-defying band Bloody Knives has created a monstrous and mesmerizing album once again with White Light Black Moon, which follows up 2016’s masterpiece I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This via Saint Marie Records. The kaleidoscopically wild LP collides in the mind with fast-paced, spinning drum ‘n’ bass rhythms, chaotic, in-yer-face noise rock, and feverish, yet melodic dream-rock.

The dream-rock/industrial punk/ambient electronic-amalgamating act was founded by Preston Maddox and is rounded out by Jake McCown, Jack O’Hara Harris, and Ritchard Napierkowski.

White Light Black Moon was self-released, and premiered at industrial/electronic music site Brutal Resonance , on April 6th.

Stream the entire album below and read on to find out all the intriguing details about how each track came into being, like the riveting and beautiful horror that is Dr. Frankenstein’s monster…

White Light Black Moon is available in 12” vinyl, CD, and digital formats.

A limited edition vinyl bundle is sold out. It included a 7” lathe vinyl record with remixes from Dean Garcia (SPC ECO, STFU, Curve) and We Are Parasols, the digital album in any file format, and a 12-page custom art book, including copies of the original lyrics, album notes, and more.

Purchase White Light Black Moon at Bloody Knives’ Bandcamp

White Light Black Moon Tracklisting:
“Darkstar”
“Demonism”
“Dig the Hole”
“New Machines”
“Midnight Hour”
“Under the Black Moon”
“Slicer Repeater”
“HKV”
“Hall of Mirrors”
“Diamond Lives”
“Prelude (Reprise)”

“DARKSTAR”

PRESTON: “Reminds me of AK1200’s “Prepare for Assault.”
JAKE: “This song ended up being a great opener. It retains quite a bit of the heavy atmospheric elements that define our sound while introducing the jungle/drum and bass elements we wanted to add to this album. Preston and I used to go to drum and bass nights when we lived in Dallas in the early 2000s that a couple of my friends were DJing and they played some great records, ones that we always kind of wanted to incorporate somewhere, but never really could, and this song showcases that time of musical influence.”
JACK: “The whole song is very fluid sounding. I think I was trying to rip off Rowland S Howard and Dick Dale on this one.”

“DEMONISM”

PRESTON: “I get to do the double downstroke crust punk thing on bass on this song and that kinda makes it for me.”
JAKE: “This is one of my personal favorites. It’s possibly the darkest song and those tend to be the ones I gravitate towards on albums. I like how the combination of the drum break on top of live drums turned out, similar to UGK’s “Diamonds and Wood” where they stack two separate drum tracks with different tones on top of each other. I’ve been trying to do that for a while, but haven’t been able to pull it off. It creates quite a big drum sound and Preston and Jack’s guitars make everything so much heavier.”
JACK: “This song is like 3 chords over and over again and its really fun to play live ‘cause I can pretty much do anything I want on stage at this point.”

“DIG THE HOLE”

PRESTON: “This track was one of the songs that got cut from the DEATH EP We came back and revisited it and it came together for this record.”
JAKE” ““Dig The Hole” might be the catchiest one on the record. The intro keyboard riff is one of the highlights to me, and the minimal drums on the verses adds a dynamic element we’ve never really incorporated before. This is the one that usually gets stuck in my head after listening to the album.”
JACK: “My guitar sounds like it was a synth sampled from an early nineties hip hop record, but its not. Its a Boss CH-1 and my fingers.”

“NEW MACHINES”

PRESTON” “This song is about how evil people with machines are eventually going to win the tech war and take over humanity. Those fools at Boston Dynamics need to watch the TERMINATOR movies again. YOU ARE CREATING SKYNET.”
JAKE: “Another personal favorite. This to me is a heavy one you can bob your head to, something to kind of amp you up. The screeching melody at the beginning is a sample of a chop saw and I thought it added a great grinding element to sort of throw you out of whack before the melodies settle you in to even you out. And then Jack’s guitars at the end kind of make the song for me.”
JACK: “Preston told me “No happy notes” and “Rip off the guitar solo at the end of “Romeo and Juliet” by Dire Straits”. I improvised two leads and sent them to Preston from Florida.”

“MIDNIGHT HOUR”

PRESTON: “Gothgaze.”
JAKE: “This is the last song we recorded for the record. After we finished the rest of the songs Preston thought we needed one more to kind of bridge the gap from I Will Cut Your Heart Out For This to this one. It turned out great and not only did it end up making for a good segue from the old to the new, it makes a great intro to the second half of the record. It kind of settles you down after “New Machines” and brings back some airy atmospheric textures to the mix.”
JACK: “This song sounds like detoxing on a space station. The breakdown at the end sounds very witch house meets hardcore which is really fun to play.”

“UNDER THE BLACK MOON”

PRESTON: “This song is about a person who thought they got away with something finally getting caught and taken out and how beautiful that moment of vengeance is.”
JAKE: “This song to me is the most rock-oriented one, an element I’m always glad we’ve been able to retain. I think a lot of the influence for this one comes from playing and seeing so many shows at Beerland in Austin over the last few years. A lot of the bands that play there regularly have an intensity you don’t really see at most other venues. Hopefully we were able to capture the punk and noise elements from those bands properly.”
JACK: “This song gave me a cramp when I recorded it.”

“SLICER REPEATER”

JAKE: “The hardest song to play live probably. Preston used an old drum beat of mine sped up for the foundation of the song and the fast hats sounded so good I wanted to keep them. It’s also one of the most fun to play.”
JACK: “I think this is the oldest or closest to the oldest song on the record that I’m aware of. It sounds like a ghost with a boombox in a well.”

“HKV”

JAKE: “I always thought “HKV” had a sort of Downward Spiral vibe to it, one that I’ve always kind of wanted on an album. Jason did a great job arranging the intro on this one as well as mixing in the programmed hi hats. I love the driving nature and abrasiveness of everything, It’s like an aggravation building up during the verses and then all-out calculated chaos in the chorus.”
JACK: “I don’t know what HKV stands for. This song also gave me a cramp when I recorded it. Its a fucking rager.”

“HALL OF MIRRORS”

PRESTON: “My favorite part of this track is the juno coming in near the end of the track. It was laying around in the studio where we recorded the drums. I locked a sequence into the arpeggiator and twisted knobs.”
JAKE: “Another personal favorite, a great back and forth between Preston’s musical influences and my own and then Jack adding his own voice and style to everything to round it all out. It has nice melodic verse to bring you back down from the harshness of “HKV” with a big, heavy chorus to keep you dancing.”
JACK: “There’s a couple songs I used a baritone guitar on. Its a DC59 that I painted and slapped an after-market baritone neck on. I play very little on this song. It’s great to do live when we can.”

“DIAMOND LIVES”

PRESTON: “This is about how the global elite need to be wiped out in their entirety and replaced with no one, with their money and wealth distributed among all of us so we can create a society that we want, and the degree to which they need to be exterminated.”
JAKE: “This one is my favorite to play live, and another dark one for sure. If there is any kind of narrative or story this album is trying to tell, the ominous vocals on this song signify a complete transformation from a kind of hopefulness on “Darkstar” to being completely consumed by some form of malevolence.”
JACK: “This is the other song I used the baritone on. It’s heavy.”

“PRELUDE (REPRISE)”

PRESTON: “This is the ouroboros of the record. The title is a tribute to my favorite keyboardist Lonnie Liston Smith and my favorite work of his, the song “Prelude” from Lonnie Liston Smith Live (1977).”
JACK: “Deceptively simple guitar work on this one.”

Bloody Knives are currently on tour. Check out Tour Dates below:

Friday April 13th Modesto-Still Smokin *
Saturday April 14th Fresno-Tioga Sequoia **
Sunday April 15th Los Angeles-Part Time Punks at The Echo * **
Tuesday April 17th San Diego-Title TK *
Thursday April 19th Phoenix-Rips (Nitewave Radio) *
Friday April 20th Tuscon-Sky Bar *
Saturday April 21st El Paso-Love Buzz *
Monday April 23rd Dallas-Outward Bound Mixtape Sessions at Red Blood Club *
Tuesday April 24th Mansfield, Ohio-La Luna
Wednesday April 25th Detroit-Outer Limits Lounge ***
Thursday April 26th Pittsburgh-Howlers ***
Friday April 27th NYC-Alphaville ***
Saturday April 28th Philadelphia-The Mothership ***
Sunday April 29th Providence-Alchemy ***

w/ Tearful Moon *
w/ We Are Parasols **
w/ Ganser ***

Get an earful and eyeful of Bloody Knives with their recent video for “New Machines”:

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Bloody Knives videos at director Matt Spear’s YouTube
Bloody Knives videos at Saint Marie Record’s YouTube