Mordred’s First Album in Over 25 Years Comes Out This Friday

Given the music Axl and I were most stoked on as impressionable pre-teens in the early-mid ’90s (Living Colour, Faith No More, Queensryche, early RHCP, obviously Metallica, etc.), it’s a wonder we never stumbled upon Mordred. MTV and the major label cartel had a hold over what reached our influenceable little ears, I suppose.

The Dark Parade, the band’s first album in over 25 years, comes out this Friday. The singles the band’s released from the record so far are my very first exposure to Mordred. And like whoa, dudes, where have you been all my life?? (that’s a rhetorical questions; don’t answer it).

Since I spaced on writing up the album’s first two singles, “Malignancy” — which features appearances from fellow Bay Area metalheads Chuck Billy (Testament), Will Carroll (Death Angel) and Matt Camacho (Forbidden) — and “Demonic #7,” I’ll post those along with the latest, “Eyes on the Prize,” both of which absolutely slap. Of the latter, the band’s guitarist Danny White explains:

“This song is based on the idea of manifest destiny here in America, set to the backdrop of the transcontinental railway construction of the late 1800s. I was watching a show called ‘Hell on Wheels,’ and it just struck me that manifest destiny and the idea that ruling America at all costs, plundering its resources and subjugating its indigenous inhabitants is somehow divinely preordained seemed antithetical to what a divine being originally intended. Colonization is an ugly business.”

The Dark Parade comes out via M-Theory Audio this Friday, July 23; pre-order here.