Trophy Scars to release their epic 4th LP, 'Holy Vacants', on the 21st of April (Europe, Far East, South America) and 6th of May (North America, Canada)

NOTE to buyers from the USA: Orders of album from the USA will ship from the USA, so the packing and postage charge for North America will only be £5.00 GBP, which is approximately $8.00 USD. So no high shipping costs or customs to worry about!

All pre-orders will be sent before the 21st of April 2014 worldwide, except the vinyl for North America, which will ship from the USA by the 2nd of May All physical product pre-orders will also receive a digital download link in a choice of formats by email and a Trophy Scars sticker and set of 4 limited edition pins (while supplies last). All digital downloads will be active by the 21st of April.

Stream or download a free track from the album, 'Hagiophobia', here:

Watch a preview for the 'Archangel' video here:

Available on CD, digital download and deluxe 180 gm double gatefold vinyl (choice of black vinyl or 'crystal clear with blue and black' vinyl, with a free poster and a free CD of the album included inside).

About Holy Vacants:

Holy Vacants, the fourth album from Trophy Scars, sees the New Jersey quartet deliver their magnum opus as they continue to evolve their sound.

The album was initially worked up as a 35-page screenplay by vocalist/lyricist Jerry Jones and is even more ambitious than 2011's Never Born Never Dead, which took reincarnation as its theme. Holy Vacants uses as its springboard a bizarre cocktail of mythology, ancient religion, and conspiracy theory surrounding the Nephilitic gene. The album revolves around Jones's tale of two lovers who have discovered not only that the blood of angels contains the fountain of youth, but also the formula for Qeres. This ancient Egyptian perfume is claimed to be the only substance that can kill angels and Nephilites, who are the supposed offspring of angel/human unions. Armed with this knowledge, the couple embark on a killing spree, drinking spilled Nephilitic blood to stop growing old.

The narrative may be conceptually out-there, but it doesn’t fence the album in and stands as a metaphor for far simpler and more widely recognized issues – the idealization of youth, loss of identity and corrupted innocence. It’s also Jones’ personal way of drawing a line under an intense past relationship: “The album was about being so in love with somebody that they literally destroy you,” he explains. “I had to write the album as a way of exorcising this person from my mind and soul. I wanted a Bonnie and Clyde-type story, because I’ve always loved that. There’s something beautiful about the idea of rebelling together against something and losing yourself in the rebellion to the extent that it destroys your life. It’s the doomed romanticism thing.”

Holy Vacants was intended the band’s final album , but instead constitutes a complete rebirth. “I thought we had one more record in us and we wanted to go out with a bang”, says Jones. Guitarist Ferrara, who Jones calls “an unbelievable composer”, sent the singer some bare-bones riffs and he found himself connecting with them immediately, hearing how they might work with strings here, a Moog and organ, maybe some brass and an all-girl choir there. And listening to the likes of opener Archangel and Qeres, with its free-wheeling but complex and cathartic, psychedelic blues, it’s obvious the band have moved light years away from their post-hardcore early years. They reveal their admiration for fellow New Jersey son Springsteen, circa Darkness on the Edge of Town with Crystallophobia, Everything Disappearing and Extant, and for Jimi Hendrix via Hagiophobia, while elsewhere there are echoes of Guns N’ Roses and The Mars Volta. But what might sound like an unworkable agglomeration of disparate parts is an intense and cohesive, hugely compelling whole, with powerful contrasts that make for a visceral immediacy.

Ferrara’s skill at laying out the panoramic sonic picture and his mastery of dynamic builds, plus Jones’ love of graphic novels and comics, the work of David Lynch and TV series like ‘The Wire’ (one episode of which suggested the album’s title) are equally responsible for the record’s impact.

“The making of this record opened a whole new door, in all of our minds,” Jones enthuses. “When we started doing all the pre-production on Holy Vacants, we realized how much more we had to investigate in ourselves and what we were capable of.”

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Album credits

TROPHY SCARS

Andy Farrell: Bass

Brian Ferrara: Drums

John Ferrara: Guitar

Jerry Jones: Vocals

Gray Reinhard: Piano, Organ, Moog

ANGELS

Desiree Saetia, Kate Lewis, Heidi Bovine Sigler: Choir

Taylor Mandel: Trumpet

Caleb Rumley: Trombone

David Rimelis: Viola, Violin, & Cello Arrangements/Direction

Gabrielle Maya Abramson: Vocals on “Nyctophobia”

Adam Fisher: Extra Vocals on “Chicago Typewriter”

Reese Van Riper: Vocals on “Gutted”

Desiree Saetia: Vocals on “Crystallophobia” & “Gutted”

Cello, viola, and violin conducted and arranged by David Rimelis

All music by Trophy Scars. All lyrics by Jerry Jones, except “Chicago Typewriter” by Jerry Jones and Adam Fisher.

Produced, mixed, and engineered by Chris Badami. Co-produced and engineered by John Ferrara. All at Portrait Recording Studios, Pompton Plains, NJ 2013.

Mastered for vinyl by Scott Hull at Masterdisk, New York, NY 2013.

Cover art by Christopher “Royal” King.

Package design by Jerry Jones

Management: Aneel De Albuqureque, The Same Ghost Collective thesameghostcollective.com

Trophy Scars Discography:

2003: Darts to the Sea (LP)

2004: Hospital Music for the Aesthetics of Language (EP)

2005: Goodnight Alchemy (EP)

2006: Alphabet. Alphabets. (LP)

2009: Bad Luck (LP)

2010: Darkness, Oh Hell (EP)

2011: Never Born, Never Dead (EP)