Chimaira Wear a Crown of Phantoms

Chimaira have announced that their new album — their first with vocalist Mark Hunter as the sole remaining original member — will be out this summer on eOne, and will be called Crown of Phantoms. Although it may make more sense within the context of the album’s lyrical themes, as of this writing, I have no idea what the hell that title means. But, as usual, I have spent too much time thinking about it, and come up with some highly-plausible theories:

• It’s a crown constructed entirely from images of Lee Faulk’s comic strip, The Phantom.
• It’s a crown which is possessed by phantoms, passed down from phantom father to phantom son for generations.
• It’s a crown which is possessed by people who have great love for a particular brand of antacid products.
• The album was supposed to be called Phantom Crown. But out of the goodness of his heart, Mark Hunter hired one of new guitarist Matt Szlachta’s former bandmates from Dirge Within, who, needless to say, screwed it up before sending out the press release. Hunter is too nice of a dude to correct a mentally handicapped person, so he just decided he’d go with the misprint as the album’s title instead.
• Mark Hunter and keyboardist Sean Z. came up with it while vaping and just thought it sounded cool.

While we wait for the answer to this mystery to present itself, the band has launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $30,000 to make a deluxe CD/DVD edition of the album — and as of this writing, they’re already almost at the halfway point, with forty-five days left to go, so yeah this seems like a sure thing.

(Side note: I know there are musicians out there who frown upon crowd sourcing, but I gotta say, I think it’s awesome. It makes the fans feel like they’re really helping the band, and thus, it makes the fans feel closer to the band. And no one is getting ripped off — everyone wins. Really, such a swell idea.)

Go here to contribute. Goodies available in exchange for chipping in include special editions of the album with a documentary, music videos, and seven bonus tracks; a phone call with a member of the band; and a remix from Hunter himself.

Lastly, and in a weird way most importantly, is a video announcing the Indiegogo campaign, in which Sean Z. plays a crazy fan/interrogator torturing Mark Hunter for information, and Mark Hunter plays a guy who could be taken down by Sean Z. (I mean no disrespect but Mark Hunter knows martial arts and shit and Sean Z.’s beard just must be a liability in a fight, right?) I say this is the most important new piece of Chimaira news because the video also features about a minute-and-a-half of a new song, which sounds really, really promising, and includes an totally killer-sounding solo from Emil Werstler. Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=otdu6Ehu62U