The Arizona death metal outfit Gatecreeper will be releasing a new studio album An Unexpected Reality tomorrow, which will be out via Closed Casket Activities and available here. Today’s announcement is the only promotion they have made for the upcoming record, which is set to have eight new songs. No singles have been released for this project.

The group’s vocalist Chase Mason explained that he wanted to avoid the typical two to three months of an album rollout, due to the current COVID-19 situation. He also explained that the current social media environment just isn’t feasible enough to release a record with that type of roll-out.

“I think the social media environment has just fried our attention spans,” Mason stated in a press release. “Trying to hold someone’s attention for two or three months with a typical album roll-out doesn’t seem feasible with everything else currently going on in the world.”

This new record was written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic and is set to feature a plethora of different sonic influences from death-doom, grind, punk and hardcore. Mason explained that the record was also partially inspired by Black Flag’s My War, a divisive album that juxtaposed more thrash influenced tracks on one side and slower, more sludge oriented music on the other. Gatecfreeper also said that the project was intended to be listened to in one sitting.

Gatecreeper’s most recent studio album Deserted came out in 2019. This track featured some guitar nods to classic death metal, along with some more punk inspired moments. The group also released the song “Anxiety” that year, which was released through the Adult Swim singles series.

An Unexpected Reality track list

1. “Starved”
2. “Sick of Being Sober”
3. “Rusted Gold”
4. “Imposter Syndrome”
5. “Amputation”
6. “Depraved Not Deprived”
7. “Superspreader”
8. “Emptiness”