Hardcore/hip-hop band UnityTX have announced their new studio album “Ferality”, due for release on September 8th, 2023, via Pure Noise Records. Produced by Andrew Wade (Wage War, A Day To Remember), “Ferality” finds UnityTX confronting the last few years head-on with a blistering cocktail of car crash energy, sludgy horror-show macabre, industrial metal sheen and sinister subliminality.
“‘Ferality’ has been a challenge of what it is to prevail while tiptoeing on the edge of sanity, like an animal being tormented in a cage”, says the band. “One could be driven completely unhinged when the effort is not acknowledged — this is an example. I speak on how it feels to not be welcomed into a space that was for the misunderstood — how it feels to lose yourself through creation, relations, and being complacent. I’ve given yet another part of myself to complete this piece of work. Set to deliver with my prosperity”.
Alongside the announcement, UnityTX have shared their newest single “ROC SH!T” – a hard-hitting, 808 rumblin’, hip-hop heavy metal track that hits like a ton of bricks with lyrical bars that cement the foundation of a new age of music.
On the track, the band explains: “We’ve had years of being bastardized by people who don’t understand that kids from the grit can also make razor sharp music with a cultural twist and hit harder than anyone could ever imagine. We have always come our own way and never felt the need to change — we’ve noticed the influence on the scene since our debut. The only thing left to do is to go harder than before, that’s definite”.
Watch the music video for “ROC SH!T” below.
“It just feels good to scream at the top of my lungs”, admits UnityTX vocalist Jay Webster. “And not even at anyone. Sometimes you just need to scream”.
“Ferality” follows UnityTX’s 2019’s “Madboy”, their first EP for Pure Noise Records that elevated the Dallas-based quartet (Webster, guitarist Ricky Cova, bassist Kendrick Nicholson and drummer Jonathan Flores) onto tours with the likes of Silverstein, The Amity Affliction and Poppy and shone a spotlight on the genre-bending sonic blend UnityTX have been building in the underground since 2014.
“We put out Madboy and then COVID hit. It was like we were having to start back at square one”, Webster admits. “That anxiety, the feeling like it’s not good enough no matter how hard you’re working – it really took a toll on me. It feels like you’re an animal in a cage, dealing with repetition and anger until you hit your breaking point”.
There’s not much self-grace given, from the opening notes of “Rotting Way (Gore)”, bathed in seven-string doom, to the haunting “Sting” and album standout “Lost in Days”, which paints an all-too-familiar cycle of anxiety-induced anger and lost innocence that bubbles to the album’s most harrowing chorus.
But when UnityTX cut these more caustic moments, whether with the swinging verve of “ROC SH!T,” leading with full-chested machismo and swagger, or their some of their most brilliantly melodic material to date “Ferality” really begins to take shape, marrying the brutality of turn-of-the-century hard rock, swagger of hardcore hip-hop, and shapeshifting spirit of new-age metalcore, careening through the last 25 years of heavy music while pushing the genre forward in captivating new ways.
“I started doing this because I wanted to play music with my friends, then eventually I realized it had potential because I could write and say anything I wanted”, Webster explains. “I want our music to be hip-hop-adjacent but also into old-school nü-metal and hardcore and metalcore – all of it. People always say, ‘Oh, you sound like this band or that band’. Bro, I’m just a songwriter”.
Pre-order & pre-save “Ferality” here.
Tracklist:
1. ROTTING AWAY (GORE)
2. BURNOUT
3. DIAMOND DIEZ
4. POWER
5. PICTURE THIS
6. STING
7. LOST IN DAYZ
8. KILLING ALCHEMY
9. ROC SH!T
10. FAKE LUV
11. WORLD OF MALICE
Weblinks:
unitytxroc.com
www.facebook.com/UnityTX
