Within the Ruins Announce Phenomena II, Drop New Video “Castle in the Sky”

Can a sequel really live up to the original? Maybe there’s the occasional sequel that’s as good or better than the original, like The Godfather Part II, Thor: Ragnorok, or Donald Trump’s second impeachment. But will the second Phenomena album by Within the Ruins live up to the hype of the original? I don’t know, I feel like I stopped caring about the stakes in that as I was writing that sentence. It’ll probably be good no matter what.

Within the Ruins recently announced their upcoming new album Phenomena II which is coming out on MNRK Heavy on August 23. With the announcement of the new album, they released the new single and video called “Castle in the Sky” which seems to start off as a darkwave song before becoming a deathcore track. It’s a really dynamic contrast that makes the song sound really exciting and vital

In a statement reported on by Lambgoat, guitarist Joe Cocchi had this to say about the new single:

“It has everything people want to hear from us out of the gate. There’s some old-school WITHIN THE RUINS in there. Lyrically, it’s based on The Punisher. He’s a war veteran who has his family taken away from him. The central struggle is, ‘Would he rather be alive or reunite with his family in the castle in the sky?’”

He then followed that up with:

“When you listen to us, we hope you feel like you found some fresh metal. After doing anything for a long time, it’s easy to get stuck in your ways. So, we always try to present something you haven’t heard before—and you aren’t going to get anywhere else.”

Phenomena II is available for pre-order now from MNRK Heavy.