There’s a fair amount of important info included in the blue PR wire text below. I mean, important if you’re looking forward to the new Stoned Jesus album, Father Light, anyhow. If not, I might ask why you’re reading this, or maybe you just kind of stumbled on this site out of the blue researching ancient phallic monuments? If so, hi. This site isn’t so much about monuments as heavy rock and roll, and Stoned Jesus are a band from Kyiv, Ukraine, about to put out their fifth album, called Father Light, through Season of Mist, which is a long-running and well-respected underground record label specializing mostly but not exclusively in metal, on March 3. I think you’re pretty much caught up.

Anyway, among the prudent details — that release date, the preorder links, recording info and so on, is the fact that the new single “Thoughts and Prayers” was written in 2019. That means before the plague, and more specifically to Stoned Jesus‘ situation, before Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine. With a pointedly Graveyardian sway — Graveyard are a band from Sweden who play a very blues-informed kind of heavy rock specifically derived from bands of the early ’70s — “Thoughts and Prayers” examines our experience of the tragedies of others, the numbing effect of social media and life behind a screen. The lyrics of the chorus, “In gardens of stone/We die alone/Waiting for someone to guide us back home/But nobody’s there/And nobody cares/Our only answer is still thoughts and prayers,” should tell you a lot about where they’re coming from.

That the song has become more relevant since the time it was written is testament to its relevance in the first place. It is one of six tracks on Father Light and the third single to be released ahead of the album’s arrival behind “CON” and “Porcelain,” both of the videos for which are also streaming below. If you listen through those and think to yourself, “Hey, each of these songs sounds kind of like it’s doing something different,” that’s on purpose and the disparity is no less a running theme throughout Father Light than the band’s engagement with their proggier tendencies and the straight-up heavy riffing on which they made their rather weighty name. Wait until you spend 11 minutes with “Season of the Witch.”

From the PR wire:

STONED JESUS Premieres Music Video for New Song, Reveals New Album Details

Pre-save: https://orcd.co/stoned-light
Pre-order: https://redirect.season-of-mist.com/STJ-FL

Ukrainian psychedelic rock trio STONED JESUS will release its new album, ‘Father Light,’ on March 3, 2023 via Season of Mist, making it the band’s debut to the label! The band is now sharing a music video for its brand new song, “Thoughts and Prayers.” The song and video can be found at THIS LOCATION while album art and other details can be found below!

Lead vocalist and guitarist Igor Sydorenko comments: “I wrote these songs mostly in 2019, we worked on them through 2020, recorded them in 2021 and were ready to release them in 2022…and finally the first batch of them is coming out as ‘Father Light’ in 2023! So this is neither our ‘pandemic’ nor our ‘war’ record, this is something I was really obsessed about many months ago – climate change, media numbness, corporations’ impact, social divisions…

“But revisiting these issues years later shows that they’re still important and this is still something that resonates with us – and hopefully will resonate with many other people, too. Musically, I think this is our most diverse and mature record to date, but there’s a good dose of old school Stoned Jesus there too!

“Anyway, enjoy this one and fingers crossed for 2024’s release of ‘Mother Dark’ – the moodier, more personal, more experimental sister album to ‘Father Light.'”

Recording studio – Spivaki Records, Ukraine
Producer / sound engineer – Artem Altunin and Dmytro Zinchenko
Mastering: Metropolis Studio, London, UK – Andy “Hippy” Baldwin

Shot at the club Hydrozagadka (Warsaw, PL) hours before actual Stoned Jesus concert there.
Camera work by true fans and filmmakers from Poland Aleksander Kwapień and Stasiek Nietrzebka.
“Thoughts and Prayers” video edited by Sergii Sliusar (who also happens to play bass for Stoned Jesus since late 2010).
“Thoughts and Prayers” track recorded and mixed in 2021 by Dmytro Zinchenko (who actually plays drums in Stoned Jesus since mid-2017).
“Thoughts and Prayers” song written in 2019 by Igor Sydorenko (who sings and plays guitar for Stoned Jesus, which he started back in 2009 as a solo bedroom project).

Tracklist “Father Light”
1. Father Light 03:35
2. Season of the Witch 11:34
3. Thought and Prayers 06:22
4. Porcelain 08:09
5. CON 04:10
6. Get What You Deserve 09:08

Total: 43:00

STONED JESUS recently announced their appearance on the mighty Hellfest of 2023! More information on tours/festival for 2023 will be announced on a later stage.

Recording line-up
Igor Sydorenko (Arlekin, Voida, Krobak, Snakerider) – lead and backing vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, organ on track 3
Dmytro Zinchenko (Doomed City, Orkectr Che, Sekunda Kota, Smeyushiysa Tigr, Small Depo) – drums and percussion, backing vocals
Sergii Sliusar – bass, backing vocals

https://www.facebook.com/stonedjesusband
https://www.instagram.com/stonedjesusband/
http://stonedjesus.bandcamp.com/
https://stonedjesus.bigcartel.com/

https://www.facebook.com/seasonofmistofficial
http://www.season-of-mist.com/

Stoned Jesus, “Thoughts and Prayers” official video

Stoned Jesus, “CON” official video

Stoned Jesus, “Porcelain” official video

Tags: Father Light, Kyiv, Season of Mist, Stoned Jesus, Stoned Jesus Father Light, Ukraine

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 24th, 2023 at 5:02 am and is filed under Whathaveyou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.