Swedish rock trio Statues have just announced their third LP titled "Black Arcs Rising" via Lövely Records, set for release on May 5, 2023, and follows up their 2020 sophomore album release titled "Holocene". Recorded at Svenska grammofonstudion in Gothenburg, this new 12 track full-length release brings back the imperishable soundscapes of 90’s alternative rock while showcasing Statues’ melodic, direct, and intense approach to songwriting. ”Black Arcs Rising” is produced and mixed by Christian Ramirez who also adds additional guitar on the tracks ”Perfect Storm”, ”Sardonic Grin”, and ”Eyes in the Sky”, and mastered by Magnus Lindberg. The album features guest vocals by Per Stålberg on ”Phantasm”, ”Dead of Summer”, and ”Hiding in a Hole”, and art direction by Joel Dunkels.

Statues on the new album “Black Arcs Rising”:

We recorded the album in the Swedish gramophone studio in Gothenburg. The time before we got some kind of hubris and recorded 20 songs, but ended up with 12. We worked non-stop the entire studio time of 5 days and ate, slept and showered with the instruments. Johan triggered the alarm the first thing he did and a microwave oven and an amplifier caught fire. The Cat People soundtrack and Neu went hot on the stereo.

The title warns of worse times. Black Arcs can be seen in a chart, but it can also mean that there are black arcs rising from the ground that warn of worse times. Our texts are often prophetic by accident. The last record, Holocene, had a song called Lockdown and then came the pandemic. The lyrics are as usual of the darker kind, but there is also a kind of black humor in the absurdity described. If you do it wrong, things will go to hell and therefore it must be warned about the madness that exists. It may already be too late to save the world as the doomsday clock is close to midnight, but by pointing to the absurdities of environmental destruction, consumerism, capitalism, the annexation of other countries and an unwillingness to change behavior, we are doing what we can to encourage change.

About the band, the indie-rock outfit Statues from Umeå, Sweden has a dense stubbornness as their musical trademark. At the same time, there is unobtrusive security and a sense of dynamics in the group's tasteful association of tantrum noises and winding melodies. Much of the establishment is unmistakably bottled in an indie-rock and post-punk North American-style tradition, and aesthetic threads of origin are related to a young and hungry Hüsker Dü as well as legendary alternative labels like SST and Dischord.

The trio has been playing together in different constellations since 1991. The red thread throughout the years is that everything has become more and more intense and angry for each year. During the years the members have been heard through bands such as Starmarket, KVLR, and The Vultures. In 2018 everything culminated at the start of Statues, and now they're back with their 3rd LP dropping later this spring. Check out the new single "Agony" below,

RIYL: Hüsker Dü, Dinosaur Jr. Sonic Youth, KVLR, Starmarket, Him Kerosene