San-Diego based one-man industrial metal project Author & Punisher has released a hazy, heavy industrial styled track entitled “Blacksmith”, the third single from his upcoming album Krüller. You can listen to the track on all streaming services, or at the YouTube link below. You can visit this link to pre-order the upcoming record.
Author & Punisher is the solo project of Tristan Shone, a musician and mechanical engineer who combines these two worlds in his musical ventures with custom-designed instruments that he utilises in both recordings and in live performance. Stylistically, Shone creates music that could be summed up as “dystopian” sounding, defined by all-consuming walls of distortion, pounding industrial drum beats and howling vocals.
Shone is consistent and prolific in his output, having released eight studio albums since 2005, with his ninth, Krüller, to be released on February 11th. Shone has now released three singles from this upcoming record: “Drone Carrying Dread”, “Maiden Star” and “Blacksmith.”
Shone has said of the new single, according to a press release: “’Blacksmith’ is a track that I co-wrote with the Krüller producer Jason Begin (Vytear)… This one is a bit of an adventure where we go from my slow bending drones and morph into Jason’s jungle and breaks with the same halftime bassline and vocals tying it together. Lyrically, this is an ode to Black women-led movements who have been fearlessly leading the way against oppression in this country for a long time.”
Speaking more generally of the album and his creative process, Shone said: “Melody has been and is still a part of my sound… “I’ve always bathed them in a lot of reverb, delay, and distortion, though. This time around, I was bothered by the wall of distortion I had created… I wanted to step back from my own show and analyze it a bit. I had all these competing distortions that I wanted to streamline. I like contrast and wanted the vocals to be immediately noticeable. There’s something about mixing punishing drones and rumble with a mellow thing on top that I really like on Krüller.”
Author & Punisher will be embarking on both a North American and EU tour in support of the record, but unfortunately for UK fans, the eight previously announced UK dates were cancelled due to COVID-19 concerns. The European dates are still set to go forward, however they have been postponed until March. Author & Punisher will also be embarking on another EU tour in October with Perturbator and HEALTH. Ticket information can be found here.
