Mexican Ape-Lord - Blunt Instrument
*****THIS IS A PRE-ORDER*****
Release Date: May 12, 2024
NOTE: CDs will ship to customers the week on May 13, 2024. For those who purchase digital downloads, the full album will automatically be available on May 13, 2024. All customers will receive the first two singles ("Blunt Instrument" and "Kentucky Meat Shower") at the time of purchase, as an "instant gratification" thank you!
ALBUM DESCRIPTION:
This heavy hitting album, hailed as Mexican Ape-Lord's "best one yet", spans eons and continents to spin together a story of mayhem, moonshine, and murder. Produced by Peter Rutcho, this masterful album cannot be missed.
FULL BIO:
In 2012 MELIAH RAGE founding guitarist/songwriter Anthony Nichols teamed up with THE BAGS vocalist/bassist Jon Hardy to form MEXICAN APE-LORD. Nichols recruited producer Peter Rutcho (Metal Blade, Century Media) who recommended a monster drummer named Steve Fry (CROTALUS, GRAVEHEART). Lead guitarist Dan Dykes (TRIPHAMMER), who had just produced MELIAH RAGE’s Dead To The World record, completed the lineup.
The band’s debut album, The Late Heavy Bombardment (Unable Records, 2014) made a slew of top ten lists. Brave Words called it “a balls-out metal album” and True Metal Lives declared, “It proudly stands up and gives genre labeling the big middle finger.”
Friends since high school, Nichols and Hardy found success in different branches of the Boston rock scene in the late eighties. After signing to Epic Records in 1988, MELIAH RAGE went on to release nine albums and built a loyal following over the course of multiple international tours. THE BAGS won the Boston Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble in 1989, released six albums, and had their song “Cavemen Rejoice” featured on the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero. Playboy described THE BAGS sound as “Thrilling guitar-bash riffs that pound like the sound of a herd of giant woolly mammoths going over a cliff, with just enough melody rasping through shredded vocal cords.”
“I always had Jon’s voice in the back of my head,” says Nichols. “I like his style and creative sensibilities, and had long thought he would be a great vocalist/lyricist for the way I write music.”
Just days after completing work on The Late Heavy Bombardment, Nichols suffered a brutal wrist injury and was told he would never play guitar again. It took three surgeries and two years of intensive rehab, but he returned to writing music and gradually worked his way back into top form. That material became the basis for MEXICAN APE-LORD’s second album, Survival Cannibalism (Unable Records, 2020).
The songs on Survival Cannibalism were inspired by a true story of shipwreck and cannibalism that took place on Boon Island, Maine in 1710. “I wanted to get inside the heads of these tormented guys, whose suffering drove them to do the unthinkable,” says Hardy. “It’s an grim subject, obviously, but a great one for Tony, Dan, and Steve, because they are masterful at covering the full range, musically – from utter darkness to the thrill of cheating Death.”
In 2022 the band released Burn Pit (Unable Records), a four song EP exploring some classic MEXICAN APE-LORD themes: inner demons, dangerous work, ritualistic bloodshed, and apex predators. “We weren’t about to stop making music just because the world was coming to an end,” says Nichols.
And now, just as the skies have cleared, another heavy hitter appears. The new album is called Blunt Instrument. Produced once again by the masterful Peter Rutcho, this one spans eons and continents to spin together a story of mayhem, moonshine, and murder. “It’s our best one yet,” says Hardy.
MEXICAN APE-LORD’s Blunt Instrument is an official launch partner for Unable Music Group's new label imprint, 10-31 Records, specializing in punk, metal, and heavy music.