CHIMAIRA: 'Crown Of Phantoms' First-Week Sales Revealed

CHIMAIRA's seventh studio album, "Crown Of Phantoms", sold around 7,400 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 52 on The Billboard 200 chart. The record arrived in stores on July 30 via eOne Music.

CHIMAIRA's previous CD, "The Age Of Hell", premiered with more than 7,000 units in August 2011 to debut at No. 54. The band's 2009 effort, "The Infection", registered a first-week tally of 15,000 to land at No. 30. This figure was roughly in line with the opening number of CHIMAIRA's 2007 album, "Resurrection", which shifted 16,000 copies to enter the chart at No. 42.

CHIMAIRA recently made headlines by way of crowd-funding a fan version CD/DVD where they doubled their initial goal via IndieGoGo.

"Crown Of Phantoms" track listing:

01. The Machine
02. No Mercy
03. All That's Left Is Blood
04. I Despise
05. Plastic Wonderland
06. The Transmigration
07. Crown Of Phantoms
08. Spineless
09. Kings Of The Shadow World
10. Wrapped In Violence
11. Love Soaked Death

CHIMAIRA's video for the song "All That's Left Is Blood" can be seen below.

Says CHIMAIRA vocalist Mark Hunter: "This video is the epitome of 'metal'. Headbanging and blood. What more do you need?"

In a recent interview with Ghost Cult, Hunter stated about CHIMAIRA's new CD: "'Crown Of Phantoms' is the culmination of three years of going through tons of changes, harsh realities but also excitement. It's something brand new and when you put all those things together you get 'Crown Of Phantoms' as a result. These are exciting times for the band and it's the polar opposite of where I was with the band two years ago.

Regarding whether he thought of packing it in after the numerous lineup changes that CHIMAIRA went through since the release of 2011's "The Age Of Hell", Hunter said: "Many people on the Internet thought we were done for. By the timing and the speed things were unraveling, I had the luxury of not thinking rationally and I simply soldiered on. It was happening so fast and not thinking about quitting was a sort of defense in a way. I defended what I hold dear and what I wanted to fight for. Of course there were moments of insecurity and doubts. Luckily, I had a good team and a good support system of friends and family around me telling me that I was crazy if I wanted to change the band name or quit altogether. They pointed out that bands like MEGADETH and BLACK SABBATH went through countless lineup changes. BLACK SABBATH had a super successful era without Ozzy. Of course, with MEGADETH, 'Rust In Peace' was one of their best albums and it wasn't recorded with the same lineup who did 'Peace Sells', which is another MEGADETH classic. There are more examples of bands that went through major lineup changes and still had major success. Of course, to be in this situation is scary as hell."