GIDEON – MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. BIO Since forming in 2008 in Tuscaloosa, AL, Gideon had been making a name for themselves by defying convention, creating their own distinct sound and never settling for anything that was just run of the mill or ordinary. Rather, the band—completed today by founding member and drummer Jake Smelley, vocalist Daniel McWhorter, guitarist/vocalist Tyler Riley and bassist Caleb DeRusha—kept stretching the boundaries of their sound to great acclaim and to increasing commercial success. 2011’s debut album, Costs, established them as powerhouse of the metalcore scene, but that’s something the band simultaneously pushed away from it, incorporating elements of melodic hardcore and hardcore punk into the fold of their songs, but always with an underlying sense of positivity and defiance. Impressively prolific, the band released their next two full-lengths, Milestone and Calloused, on Facedown Records in 2012 and 2014 respectively, before signing to Equal Vision Records. Their first album for EVR was 2017’s Cold, followed by Out Of Control in 2019, a record that deservedly saw the band’s profile rising steadily. And then, of course, the pandemic hit. And all that hard work and dedication, and the progress they’d made vanished in an instant. In fact, Gideon were mid-tour on that album cycle when touring came grinding to a halt and forced the band to return home to Alabama, frustrated and disillusioned with a situation that—like most touring bands—thought might mean the end of what they do. Thankfully, it didn’t, which brings us to Gideon’s 6th full-length studio album. Recorded/mixed/mastered by Randy Lebouef at Graphic Nature Audio, MORE POWER. MORE PAIN. is a brutally intense burst of violent noise that both nods to the band’s past, musically and thematically, but also establishes itself in its own context. “We had to walk through fire and break down walls to get to this chapter” says Smelley, “We’re done explaining why we are the way we are. This album is for the misunderstood, the dreamers, the broken, the damned, the ones that refuse to fall in line. When everything and everyone tells you to give up, your mind can take you to dark places. We came to realize that there was strength in that. Instead of letting it consume us, we fought like hell.” One of the best examples of that is “Too Much Is Never Enough”, the first single from the album. A pummeling blast of vicious, metal-tinged hardcore, it’s full of acerbic guitars and chugging riffs, over which McWhorter viciously spits ‘Nothing was given to me, that shit was earned the hard way.’ It’s a line that sums up not just the song, but also much of the album as well—and the underlying positivity that underpins all of it. “That song really encapsulates what the theme of the record is,” says Riley. “It talks about how much work it takes to stay ahead. Especially when it feels like there are people around you that don’t believe in you, and that may not believe you’ve earned your place, even though the pain of sacrifice is felt deeply every day—and how you have to let that fuel you. It's about how much shit we took just to get here, but trying to embrace that process as a positive instead of a negative—that no matter how much is coming at us and distorting our vision, we’re still looking at goals beyond it, and letting the pain fuel us to the finish line.” “You can go through all our albums,” adds Smelley, “and see the chapters of pain and the other things we've dealt with through the years. But where MORE POWER. MORE PAIN came from was us genuinely understanding that in order to gain more control over our lives, we have to be willing to bite the bullet and go through whatever it takes to get there.” That defiance, however, isn’t just present in that one song. It’s a running theme throughout the whole album, from the punishing first song proper “Locked Out Of Heaven” through to the bruising final song proper “Back To Basics”. On both, the band unleash their full unrelenting power. In between, the title track is an intense surge of sacrifice and determination on which you can literally feel the band living out its lyrics, “Take Off” continues the band’s uncanny knack for subverting the genre by incorporating turntable scratching into its folds, while electronic soundscapes and almost psychedelic guitars underpin the harsh burst of noise that is “If You Love Me, Let Me Go”. And then there’s “I Will Carry You”, and which—despite the euphoria of its guitar lines and the ferocity of both its guitars and vocals—is drenched with sadness at the loss of a close friend who passed away when the band were locked away—literally, because of Covid—in the studio making this record. “A week before we went to the studio,” says Smelley, “I had seen my friend Sam at a restaurant. We sat in the parking lot afterwards and we talked for what must have been three hours. It was one of those just like 'Man, I'm so glad you're here right now.' He was expressing to me the pain that he was dealing with being a musician and not knowing how to get it off the ground. We even talked about starting an outlaw country band and writing some music together after I came back from the studio, which I couldn’t wait to do because he's such a light to be around. But the day we got to the studio my girlfriend called me and told me that he'd been in a car wreck and he'd passed away the night before. He was just a really good guy, so I wrote “I Will Carry You” for him. I've never been in the studio and written about some traumatic experience like as it's happening, but the emotions were very real and raw as could be. There are a lot of references in that song to Sam--I didn't write it so much for me as for Sam's other friends, as an anthem to remember him by.” Like the other songs on this album, and in typical Gideon style, “I Will Carry You” doesn’t dwell on the darkness. It fully absorbs it, and then transcends it, seeking out some semblance of hope, light and comfort. That’s a pattern accentuated by the samples that punctuate this album. Taken from an interview with a singer the band wish to leave mysterious for now, these snippets resonate with the themes running through this album, and complement its songs, which in turn enhance the potency of the clips. It all serves to create a powerful and cohesive whole that celebrates the past while looking forward to the future. That spirit is captured in the final track, another excerpt from that interview but one backed with weird electronic noises that turn the music and the emotion of everything that came before on its head. The contrast only serves to make the whole album more powerful, while at the same time showcasing how it redefines who and what and why Gideon are. The result is the most uncompromising expression of the band’s existence to date, and probably their most important message to date. “If you want to move forward in your life and if you want to take control of your life,” says Riley, “you really have to determine what direction you're going. That comes along with a lot of a lot of sacrifice and a lot of pain. This whole album is an acknowledgment of the suffering and pain that sometimes has to just happen to achieve great things in your life, or things that you want to be great. It's a very real trade-off, you know? And as a band, Gideon isn’t going anywhere. We won’t compromise on quality ever moving forward. We're just going to continue to build on what we've built so far.” Full bar available during events. Limited seating available on a first come first serve basis. All Ages unless stated otherwise. Support acts subject to change. All sales are final. No exchanges or refunds unless a show is cancelled or postponed. 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