Carpenter Brut and Greg Puciato Team Up on Monstrous New Song and Video, “Imaginary Fire”
Fans of dark synthwave kings Carpenter Brut and former The Dillinger Escape Plan frontman Greg Puciato’s work with The Black Queen (and his solo material) will be absolutely delighted with “Imaginary Fire,” the collaborative track that also heralds the announcement of Carpenter Brut’s new album, Leather Terror. It’s as if “Turbo Killer” and “Ice to Never” assembled Transformers-style into one unstoppable sinister dance machine.
“Imaginary Fire” arrives with a dope-ass video, too (naturally). Set in a dystopian futuristic hellscape that roughly resembles Los Angeles, it’s got all sorts of trippy imagery of animals — especially sea creatures — personified as evil zombie robots. You won’t want to switch tabs while this one plays in the background.
Puciato isn’t the only known metal entity Carpenter Brut tapped this time around: Gunship, Ben Koller of Converge, Jonka of Tribulation, Ulver, and Kathrine Shepard from the band Sylvaine are also on board.
Leather Terror is the second in Carpenter Brut’s Leather album trilogy, the next chapter following his widely acclaimed 2018 album Leather Teeth. Press copy:
“The albums form the soundtrack of an imagined movie from 1987. The previous record introduced the story of Bret Halford, an introverted science student. He liked a girl who didn’t like him and much preferred the team’s star quarterback. Bret got mad and tried to create a concoction that would allow him to control them all, but ends up disfigured and decides instead to become a rock star. This is how he will seduce the girl, and all other girls: by becoming Leather Teeth, singer of Leather Patrol.
“Now Leather Terror finds Bret Halford as a true rock star and a ruthless avenger. Leather Teeth inflicts vengeance on those who stand between him and what he desires. While Leather Teeth was in parts a celebratory take on ‘80s glam rock, in his new opus Carpenter Brut – across the space of twelve tracks – gets more malevolent, documenting the rise of his protagonist as a serial killer who wants to take revenge on all those who mistreated him when he was younger.”
Regarding the album, Carpenter Brut says:
“After spending much of 2018 touring, I had decided to take a long break to compose the new album of the trilogy. The pandemic confirmed that my choice to stay home was the right one. I ended up taking over a year and a half to compose this album. I made a lot of decisions with the time I had that I wouldn’t have had time to make if the pandemic hadn’t happened.
“I wanted to make the whole thing as massive as possible. There is no guitar on this album. I did everything with synths. Even though I didn’t know exactly how I wanted the album to sound at first, I knew I wanted it to be massive and violent.”
Speaking about his involvement, Greg says:
“I’m really proud of this one, happy to cross these musical paths. I love how the video turned out too. Lyrically the song is pretty to the point. Two people frustratingly trying to get rid of their fears and their made-up bullshit so they can move forward, together or separate, free of outcome.”
Give “Imaginary Fire” a watch below.
Leather Terror comes out April 1 via Universal Music and is available to pre-order now here.
