Saidan have announced their fourth album, Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory’s Wrist, due 19 June via Avantgarde Music, and shared a cinematic new single and video, ‘Ethereal Blood‘.
The Japanese-horror-inspired USBM outfit, based in Nashville, build a sound that pulls the lo-fi nature of classic Visual Kei and gothic black metal together with blistering solos, deranged vocals, anthemic riffage and diabolical drumming, shot through with doses of modern breakcore. The aim, the band say, is an album that sounds nostalgic for an era of music that never actually existed, familiar yet boldly its own.
A prequel to 2023’s Visual Kill, Fangdriller follows The Student, Junko, as she tries to heal a fractured heart, her isolation making her the perfect victim for a mysterious cult known as Ethereal Blood. Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Splatterpvnk calls ‘Ethereal Blood‘ a perverse initiation into something seemingly pure yet shrouded in violent isolation, and an essential part of the album’s conceptual identity. Lyrically the record deals with depression, heartbreak, loss and loneliness, themes the band have explored across a fast-rising run since forming in 2020.
Saidan also head out on a US tour through July and August in support of atmospheric black metal act Trhä, alongside Barbelith, running from Indianapolis on 23 July to Charlotte on 8 August.
Concept-driven black metal with one foot in Japanese horror and another in Visual Kei is an intriguing proposition, and on the evidence of ‘Ethereal Blood‘ there’s real atmosphere and ambition at work here. We’ll be keeping an ear out for the full record.
Fangdriller: Scars Beneath Memory’s Wrist is released on 19 June.
