In 2019 very few (if any) people foresaw all the global upheavals that the immediately following years would produce — a global pandemic, the damage caused by rapidly accelerating climate change, and a ravaging war in Europe, among other catastrophes. The Australian band Claret Ash didn’t foresee them either, at least not in all of those specifics, but what happened did depressingly dovetail with an imaginative narrative they had already begun, and informed where it would then unfold in a tale of societal collapse.
In December of last year, almost five years after the release of their last album The Great Adjudication: Fragment Two, the band began a new musical sequence called WORLDTORN. As explained by the band in an exclusive interview you’ll find at the end of this feature, it “picks up from where the last album, The Great Adjudication, finished by focusing on events after the collapse of society and the eradication of humanity”.
Clarest Ash launched WORLDTORN in December with the single “GATEWAYS” (reviewed by us here). Thematically, it described a world in turmoil, reeling from an “anthropocentric holocaust” during which nature had mutated and become the supreme force and humans were forced into hiding.
And now Claret Ash will be following that initial chapter of their continuing narrative with a second installment, a new EP named WORLDTORN: Anemoia that’s set for release on CD and digital formats by Hypnotic Dirge Records on August 11, 2023. In addition to the afore-mentioned interview, it’s our pleasure today to premiere the EP’s electrifying opening song, “Cascadence of the Twilight“. Continue reading »