"We wanted to go a more metal-orientated direction…" Employed To Serve announce fourth album, Conquering
Watch the video for Exist, the lead single from Employed To Serve's upcoming fourth full-length, Conquering.
After debuting their new single Exist live at Download Pilot last weekend, Employed To Serve have officially unleashed the song and accompanying video, as well as announcing details of their fourth album Conquering.
The follow-up to the brilliant Eternal Forward Motion is due out on September 17 via Spinefarm, with vocalist Justine Jones explaining that the LP is "about rising above adversity and self-doubt".
"We're really excited to share our latest album; I feel it's our best work to date," she adds. "We wanted to go a more metal-orientated direction with this album and see how far we could push our musical capabilities."
Read this: Employed To Serve’s Justine Jones: "Putting spotlights on women in the industry is important"
Meanwhile, Justine says of the new ETS single and video: "Exist is a song that celebrates the highs and lows of existing. For this video I really wanted to capture the excitement of being a pre-teen and discovering the absolute joy that is music. I loved the idea of getting into someone's head at that time and them daydreaming about being onstage with the band you love, like we did when we were that age and recently in the past year when we couldn't play shows!
"It took six months of planning due to the pandemic and because we had to source someone who could create one-off figures of each band member. We were lucky enough to come across Mattachine Society from Brooklyn, who creates awesome bootlegs. For the model stage and backline, Sammy and I channelled our inner Art Attack and made that during the winter lockdown to keep our minds from the apocalypse.
"When having meetings about how to dress the set and actors, we wanted to shout out as many of our mates' bands as possible and leave little Easter eggs for people to find with each re-watch of the video.
"The most important aspect of the video for me was finding a young energetic girl to play the really stoked kid. When I was growing up, metal was a very male-dominated genre and I always felt a bit out of place. I feel that this is a different story now with so many women in bands, working in the industry and in the crowd, it's becoming normalised which is really exciting."
Check out the full Conquering tracklist:
1. Universal Chokehold
2. Exist
3. Twist The Blade
4. Sun Up To Sun Down
5. The Mistake
6. We Don’t Need You
7. Set In Stone
8. Mark Of The Grave
9. World Ender
10. Conquering
11. Stand Alone
And the album artwork: