Castle to Release One Knight Stands: Live in NY April 1; Studio Album to Follow
What more do you need to know? It’s a Castle live record. It was recorded in 2017, which makes it before 2018’s Deal Thy Fate (review here) and after 2016’s Welcome to the Graveyard (review here), and a point at which the band were positively nomadic. Tours on top of tours on top of outs.
With a succession of drummers to and through the lineup around bassist/vocalist Liz Blackwell and guitarist Mat Davis — on Deal Thy Fate, it was Chase Manhattan, which sounded like a fake name then and still kind of does — the hard-charging, originally-Canadian two-piece nonetheless presaged the “true metal” movement by at least half a decade and did it heavier, cooler, and more interesting than most out there trying to pretend it’s 1983 or whenever it was that anything might’ve conceptually mattered. They received a fraction of the hype they deserved in so doing.
The thing about Castle, though: they’ve always been a live band. Accordingly, if you’ve ever seen them you likely don’t need me to tell you One Knight Stands: Live in NY will be one to catch, and word a new studio album in the can is a bonus considering 2018 was six years ago now. Not the longest stretch being discussed today between records, but not nothing. Blah blah blah, something about ‘due’ and then some half-clever segue to the PR wire:
CASTLE: Announce Live Album Preorder; New Studio Album Revealed
Heavy metal doomsters CASTLE are pleased to announce the release of their first official live album “One Knight Stands: Live In NY”.
Recorded during CASTLE’s Welcome To The Graveyard Tour in Brooklyn, NY on September 18, 2017, the 10 track album draws on songs from each of the band’s first four albums and captures the three-piece at the height of their road hardened power.
“We’re happy to finally put this out as a document to all the miles travelled and time spent playing night after night”, the band states. “We think this album is a pretty accurate snapshot of the band onstage; no overdubs, no edits, just live and loud and we thought it would be cool to share that”.
One Knight Stands: Live In NY is available for preorder from the band’s own newly formed imprint, Black Wren Records on limited edition vinyl as well as digital. Additionally, the band has released an advance streaming single “Hammer And The Cross (Live)”.
The stream and pre-order can be found here:
http://blackwrenrecords.bandcamp.com/music
European pre-orders through Ván Records can be found here:
http://van-records.com/Castle-One-Knight-Stands-Live-In-NY-lim-12-LP_1
CASTLE “One Knight Stands: Live In NY” Tracklist
1. Black Widow
2. Down In The Cauldron Bog
3. Hammer And The Cross
4. Flash Of The Pentagram
5. A Killing Pace
6. Corpse Candles
7. Temple Of The Lost
8. Dying Breed
9. Evil Ways
10. Total Betrayal
CASTLE have also recently completed recording their newest studio album. Recorded and mixed during October and November of 2023 at Rain City Recorders in Vancouver, BC with producer Jesse Gander (Anciients, Brutus, 3 Inches Of Blood), the as-yet-untitled album will mark the band’s sixth, and follows 2018’s Deal Thy Fate and 2016’s Welcome To The Graveyard.
More details about the new studio album will be announced in the coming months including album title, tracklist, artwork and release date.
CASTLE was forged in San Francisco in 2009 and released its debut full-length, In Witch Order, via Germany’s Ván Records in 2011. The album brought light to the newly-formed band and earned them “Album Of The Year” honors from Metal Hammer Norway. Shortly thereafter, CASTLE joined the Prosthetic Records roster in North America and released both their critically-acclaimed sophomore album Blacklands, which led to a Canadian JUNO nomination for “Metal/Hard Music Album Of The Year”, and 2014’s follow-up, Under Siege.
Since the release of its first album, CASTLE has maintained a relentless tour schedule, performing over six hundred shows worldwide alongside the likes of The Sword, Conan, Intronaut, The Skull and Pentagram, among many others. The group has appeared at numerous underground music festivals including Roadburn, the London and Berlin Desertfests and recently completed its first-ever tour of Japan.
heavycastle.com
facebook.com/CastleSF
https://www.instagram.com/heavycastle
https://heavycastle.bandcamp.com/
https://blackwrenrecords.bandcamp.com/
