Cloak - Nigredo - Initium (Official Video)

Buy here: http://www.metalblade.com/cloak Cloak "Above, Below, & Through" // February 12th, 2027 “It flows within, but moves without. This timeless curse that binds us now.” – CLOAK, “Nigredo – Initium“

A season of change, hibernation, and inspiration fueled CLOAK in creating Above, Below, & Through, the quartet’s debut album for Metal Blade and their fourth overall, set for release on February 12th, 2027.

“Above, Below, & Through takes everything that was great about our last LP, Black Flame Eternal, and amplifies it completely, while still standing as an album of its own,” the band confirms.

CLOAK, based in Atlanta, Georgia since forming in 2013, made a conscious decision to give their new record a thematic and conceptual vibe, with lyrics and themes around liminality and duality ultimately spawning a fully realized opus.

On Above, Below, & Through founding members, vocalist/guitarist Scott Taysom and guitarist Max Brigham, are now joined by drummer Matt Morris and bassist Rafay Nabeel. Sonically, the offering is the band’s most lush and massive-sounding record to date. The drums are huge but not processed sounding, the bass rumbles, and the guitar tones are full of attack and focus. Listeners will notice a big difference between this production and CLOAK‘s previous records.

As the songs on the record were being composed, themes began to emerge. “The main concepts of the songs were dealing with pathways between life and death, realms between dream and consciousness, shifts between beast and man, and the juxtaposition of shadow and light as spiritual guides,” explains Taysom. “The album title’s meaning became clear, as something both all-encompassing and complete, but also something liminal and transitional. This is represented in both the songs and the band itself at the time of writing the album.”

Lead single “Nigredo – Initium” was the first song CLOAK worked on as a new lineup. Taysom’s lyrics are a direct result of the way the music sounds, and the inspiration the song gives off.

The band further elaborates, “A tale of being marked from the beginning. ‘Nigredo – Initium’ was the first song we started working on as a new lineup, which is very fitting considering the translated title. It is the initial door that opens to the world that is Above, Below, & Through, and the start of a new dark age.”

Video by The C.O.I.N. https://www.thecoinlives.com

Director: Nathan Thaddeus Cieslak Director of Photography: Nathan Thaddeus Cieslak Additional Cinematography: Brian Sheehan Production Manager: Kamil Antos Gaff: Dante Lamb, Kamil Antos Editors: Nathan Thaddeus Cieslak, Brian Sheehan Makeup Artist: Brian Sheehan Stylists: Brian Sheehan & Kamil Antos Prop Masters: Kamil Antos Additional Props: James Bell Production Assistants: Rob Mills, Dante Lamb, John Bell, Isaac Marier Title Design: Josh Yelle - Pencilmancer Starring: Philip Digby, Katie Hoffman, Larry Ripari, Rob Mills, Robert Radtke, & Kamil Antos Cloak as Themselves

Song recorded and mixed by Alex Parra at Second Sight Sound Drums co-engineered by John Douglass at Vorticist Studios Produced by Alex Parra and Cloak Mastered by Jacob Hansen

Lyrics: A spirit foul. A soul as black as night it seems. Have you seen the silent one Who walks behind and dwells beneath? A waning fate. A journey lost 'neath the dying sun. And in the darkest days, There He awaits, the silent one. Come, horrors deep. Come, dreadful eyes. In tongues they speak, in dreams we die. It flows within, But moves without. This timeless curse that binds us now. Who are you that calls? And who is He that has shaped the night? Will they grant me the gifts bestowed 'neath the ailing light?

For I have seen the signs, And I have yearned where few shall dare. But on this fallen night, Through daemon's sight, we journey there. I fall, bow down, submit and submerge. We've met long before, a greeting rife with vile scorn. Revealed in slumber, in silence, in black. Far beyond the waking dawn, I lay before the Therion. To see through eyes not yet awake. To walk the fields of burning coals and treasures old. The mouth of hell, to which I fell, To see below where truth defies all that I know. And it spoke: "Become all that you hate. Thus love all that you are." In slithering silence it moves, That which infects the solace in all heart's depths.