STABBING WESTWARD To Release First New Music In Nearly Two Decades

Industrial rockers STABBING WESTWARD will release their first collection of new music since 2001 early next year. A new EP titled "Dead & Gone" will arrive on January 3.

The group said in a statement: We have been working on new music for a few years now and are finally ready to begin releasing it starting with our first new music since 2001. 'Dead & Gone' features 3 brand new songs and 2 remixes and will be available as a digital download as well as a CD with full color artwork."

STABBING WESTWARD released an EP in 1992, followed by four studio albums between 1994 and 2001. The band achieved its first certified gold albums with both 1996's "Wither Blister Burn & Peel" and 1998's "Darkest Days". After STABBING WESTWARD disbanded in 2002, frontman Christopher Hall formed THE DREAMING, with whom he recorded three albums. Hall and keyboardist Walter Flakus reformed STABBING WESTWARD in 2016 to celebrate the band's 30th anniversary, and they have continued to perform.

in 2016, STABBING WESTWARD released a re-recorded version of the song "Plastic Jesus" on the "Cold Waves V" compilation. Another track called "Home in You", which was originally written for the band's 2001 self-titled album, was made available in 2017 via the "Cold Waves VI" compilation.

STABBING WESTWARD's current lineup includes Hall, Flakus, THE DREAMING's Carlton Bost on bass, and former ORGY drummer Bobby Amaro.

In an October 2018 interview with CrypticRock.com, Hall stated about the prospect of new music from STABBING WESTWARD: "We discussed it a lot. We played Cold Waves festival last year and the year before. Both times they asked us to contribute a song to a compilation record they sell to give to the anti-suicide charity they work with. The first time we did an old song that was off the original four-song EP from 1988 that we never released. We re-recorded it and gave them that. We played it at the show, and that was the very first STABBING WESTWARD show we had done in twenty years. People were just so stoked to see us at a sold-out club in Chicago that no one cared they played a new song they didn't know. Then, the next year, after we played around a dozen shows, we gave them another new song. It was a song we had written for the self-titled album that was too heavy for it. It was a really good song; we had written 20 songs, and only used 10. We played it and I thought people would be sort of excited to hear new music. That was the moment it dawned on me, maybe people don't want to hear new music. We put the song sixth or seventh in the set, played a bunch of songs they knew, people were pumped, then I said, 'We are going to play a new song.' People cheered, then we started playing, and I saw everyone's head drop down and started looking at their phone. Everyone started glowing blue as they started looking at their social media. I thought, 'Maybe they are tweeting how awesome the new song is.' Then they never looked up again. [Laughs] I thought, 'Oh, no, they are just bored! They don't know the song, so they are taking a quick break to check their Facebook or whatever.' We lost them, and it wasn't until a couple of songs later that we regained the lost energy. That was when I was, like, 'Shit, if we do a new record, is anyone going to hear it at a show?' THE DREAMING, they always expected new music, because that's all there ever was. We mixed in some STABBING WESTWARD hits, but mostly it was all songs I had written over the past 10 years. People expected that. But at a STABBING show, people are in a mind frame of wanting to hear the songs they knew in high school or college."

He continued: "I think perhaps if we release some material, an EP or something, let people hear it, get it on Spotify, and get a chance to listen to it first. Then it's not new, and you don't know what's going on. Hopefully people are open to it, because I don't want to sing the same old songs forever and ever. We will never be a band that says, 'I'm tired of 'Save Yourself'; we are not going to play that anymore.' We will never be that band. We will always give the fans what they want, we will always play the hits and songs they want. It would be nice to occasionally toss in a new song. [Laughs] There is stuff I want to say and new stuff I want to sing about. I just don't know how excited people would be to hear it."