Purchase includes CD booklet signed by the band.
Verminous is The Black Dahlia Murder‘s most dynamic, rousing and emotional release to date, and it achieves this without compromising one iota of heaviness. “I think this is the biggest evolutionary leap we’ve ever taken from one album to the next. We stoked the creative fires with 2017′s ‘Nightbringers‘ and it’s gone much further now in ‘Verminous‘,” states vocalist Trevor Strnad. “It’s a very colorful, moody, and charismatic album that experiments with new sounds and ideas without losing the cutthroat Black Dahlia edge. There is a lot of minutiae to digest. Plenty of delicious little Easter eggs woven into the fabric of each song. Each one is a living, breathing entity that will stand on its own as some of the best music this band has ever created.”
While the drums were recorded at The Pipeyard in Plymouth, Michigan by ex-bassist and longtime studio guru Ryan “Bart” Williams, the bulk of the album was recorded in New Jersey at guitarist Brandon Ellis’ home studio, the Shred Light District, then mixed by Tue Madsen and mastered by Alan Douches. Produced by Ellis and the band, Verminous sees Black Dahlia having a greater level of control over every facet of recording than on any previous release, enabling them to tweak and fine-tune all the small details right up until the point they sent it to Madsen in Denmark. “To say we were anal-retentive would be an understatement. Tue did an outstanding job. His mix is organic. Classic sounding. Not too slick. It’s got an old school ‘real life’ feel to it rather than being the overly polished quantized-to-hell drek that is coming out these days. We wanted the album’s sound to have its own personality, and he helped us achieve just that. Finally, Alan did a great job of smoothing out the final details with his mastering. He beefed it up into what you hear now.” The only other outside collaborators with which the band worked were soundscape artist Michael Ghelfi, who provided the sample that opens the record and “sets the pest-ridden vibe”, and Juanjo Castellano, who painted the cover. “It’s amazing and classically death metal cover artwork. I call it an evil underground sewer world, home to the verminous ones. If you look closely you can find all kinds of rats and bugs and critters scattered throughout. The amount of detail Juanjo put in there is second to none.”
When it came to title the record, Strnad looked around at the scene he has helped nourish for two decades and found his inspiration. "We, members of our beloved and hidden world of the heavy metal underground teeming just below the surface, are the verminous. The rats and roaches looming in the cracks and crevices of this fallen world. We are the pariahs that the world of normality finds loathsome and obscene. We are the carriers of a plague of knowledge so vile that it could bring the unsuspecting mankind to its knees. Always the underdogs. Our love for this music and what it means to our lives is foolishly underestimated." This ties into the lyrical themes that permeate the record, though not exclusively, Strnad not struggling to find subject matter that engaged him. "The outside world of religion-warped 'normalcy' is the opposing viewpoint. We are the ultimate antagonist to their archaic ways of thought, the dreamers of the nightmares that shake them to their very core. Although we are but lowly vermin to them, the unseen and underestimated, our numbers are millions strong. We cast aside their ways and prefer to take solace in the hidden realm of the underground where the dark fruits of free thought can be enjoyed. We are our own Gods. The responsibility of our actions is ours alone."
