Kerrang! is excited to host an advance stream of When The World Becomes Undone a day before its release. Before that, we caught up with Sal to learn about the broken heart at the core of the band's newest dirge...
The last single you released from the album was the title track, When The World Becomes Undone. What's the nutrition behind the title, and that song?
That song goes back as far as 2014. I had the title and piano idea from back then. We didn’t finally arrange stuff until last year. That song correlates with a few things -- I was in Europe when it came to me. I was in a hotel room and watching TV, seeing ISIS beheading people, and I was like, ‘Wow, we’re back in barbarian times. This whole place is falling apart.’ And I’m a believer that for a title, if it still works five years later, it’s a keeper. And with what’s been happening in the country and globally, I thought that title couldn’t be more appropriate. People are getting their britches tied in knots over the dumbest things now.
How do you think that's going to resolve itself? How do you see the world progressing, if it's so doomed?
I think what’s going to happen is we’re going to hit a brick wall, and we’re going to have to hit a reset button and start all over again. So the song touches on that and a little bit of personal stuff, but primarily it’s about how man is to blame. We are the problem, and we are constantly fucking things up as always. And I ain’t no hippie dippie preacher, I won’t tell anyone how to live, but...people have their priorities mixed up as to what’s really important. You can’t say nothing anymore. The idea of freedom of speech is out the door. Not because the government is coming after you, but because of people. On social media, you can have your life or career destroyed overnight.
Is that a recurring theme throughout the album? Is there a "concept" behind the record?
The album is very dark and depressing about personal things that have gone on in my life, too. It’s a conceptual ride about dark things that have gone on in my life. I try not to write too specifically, so people can interpret it into their own situations. The record goes on a long, tribal, funeral, up-and-down kind of vibe. The first two singles were the most upbeat songs on the album; everything else just goes at a kill yourself tempo. By the end of the album, everything is so dark, that by the time you get to the closer, which is a recording of an actual outdoor funeral with a priest speaking over a casket, it takes you really down and dark. But, you also hear a bird singing in the background, which gives it a sense of enlightenment, of something to look forward to in the end. It’s a journey--I like things very cinematic and grand.