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shinedown planetzeroSHINEDOWN recently demonstrated just how much they care about our social cohesion with their “Atlas Falls” fundraiser, which raised over $400,000 in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the multi-platinum Florida rockers have announced their new album ‘Planet Zero’, which explores a range of burning issues. The seventh studio album will be released on April 22 and will be led by the lead single, which is also the work’s title track.

The first editorial interview about the album went to Billboard, who spoke to frontman Brent Smith and bassist and producer Eric Bass. With haunting lyrics, ‘Planet Zero’ takes a sharp look at current topics, especially since the beginning of the corona pandemic, which not only demands a lot of us physically but also mentally, all accompanied by the explosive and at the same time artfully crafted sounds of SHINEDOWN. The single rings alarm bells and shows us where it can lead when we take things too far and increasingly lose touch with reality and compassion for one another through drifting into conspiracy myths and promoting fake news.

“There’s a lot to unpack with the record,” Smith explains, “but ultimately this is a record about pulling the curtain back. When we started writing it was like, ‘Do we do the crystal ball method… try to write about three years from now, because it’s not always gonna be like this? It’s gonna get better.’ And ultimately what happened was things just were not getting better and things were getting even more divisive. We’ve always been an honest band, so it was impossible not to write about what we saw going on…these narratives that are being pushed and are just dividing us. We feel like it’s really dangerous.”

Bass adds that ‘Planet Zero’ and its title track are “a glimpse into the future if we continue with the way we’re treating each other. This record is a warning, in a lot of ways, to everyone. It’s not a record for the right, it’s not a record for the left… for Black, White, Asian, Hispanic. It’s a record for all of us. There are a lot of really inspiring songs, a lot of songs with a lot of humanity in them, but it’s a glimpse into a potential future and it’s a warning that if we don’t start to view everything through a human lens… we could be headed for a really, really bad place.” (Quotes taken from the latest Billboard interview)

The song ‘Planet Zero’ can be heard here:

The album can now be pre-ordered here: https://wmg.click/Planet_Zero_PreOrder

SHINEDOWN have forged a status as one of the most indispensable and progressive forces in Modern Rock over the past two decades. ‘Planet Zero’ is their most ambitious and masterful work to date, a conceptually sophisticated, ultra-vivid and emotionally charged saga. The album takes a critical inventory of the ruptures and struggles of a society that has experienced many challenges in recent years. ‘Planet Zero’ is as much a social commentary as it is a profound exploration of the human psyche - and it never loses its faith in an optimistic ending.

As with 2018s critically acclaimed ‘Attention Attention’, ‘Planet Zero’ was produced by SHINEDOWN bassist Eric Bass, who recorded the album at his newly built Big Animal Studio in South Carolina. SHINEDOWN deliberately contrasts the haunting narrative threads with an unvarnished sound, and the tracks are broken up by interludes with Cyren, a devious and disturbing robot character who appears repeatedly throughout the ‘Planet Zero’ journey.

Alongside the raw violence of songs like ‘The Saints of Violence and Innuendo’, ‘No Sleep Tonight’ and ‘America Burning’, tracks like ‘Daylight’, ‘Dysfunctional You’ and ‘A Symptom of Being Human’ remind us that there is also moments of hope, success and caring for one another. It is precisely this striving for unity that has always driven the band passionately and also had a significant influence on the creation of ‘Planet Zero’. Find the full track listing below.

From the end of January, SHINEDOWN will go on a US tour with their biggest stage production to date, support and special guests along the route will include AYRON JONES, THE PRETTY RECKLESS and DIAMANTE. In the summer, the band comes across the Atlantic for tour dates, festival appearances and selected shows with IRON MAIDEN. In Germany, there is a headliner concert in Hamburg and appearances at Rock am Ring and Rock in Park:
June 3, 2022 Nuremberg, Rock im Park
June 5, 2022 Mendig, Rock am Ring
June 9, 2022 Hamburg, edel-optics-de Arena

‘Planet Zero’ follows the album ‘Attention Attention’, released in 2018, which went gold in the US and reached #21 on the domestic charts. The band recently brought the LP to life with a gripping feature film, also titled ‘Attention Attention’, and a visual echo of the album’s themes of mental health and the determination of human nature. The film weaves the album’s 14 songs into a cinematic story that’s equally provocative and thought-provoking. Watch the trailer for the film, directed by Bill Yukich (BEYONCÉ, METALLICA, WIZ KHALIFA), here:


The film can be streamed via https://shinedown.lnk.to/ATTENTIONATTENTIONFilm and will also be available on Blu-ray and DVD soon.

‘Planet Zero’ Tracklist
00. 2184
01. No Sleep Tonight
02. Planet Zero
03. Welcome
04. Dysfunctional You
05. Dead Don’t Die
06. Standardized Experiences
07. America Burning
08. Do Not Panic
09. A Symptom Of Being Human
10. Hope
11. A More Utopian Future
12. Clueless And Dramatic
13. Sure Is Fun
14. Daylight
15. This Is A Warning
16. The Saints Of Violence And Innuendo
17. Army Of The Underappreciated
18. Delete
19. What You Wanted

Multi-platinum band SHINEDOWN - Brent Smith [vocals], Zach Myers [guitar], Eric Bass [bass, production] and Barry Kerch [drums] - have achieved tremendous success with their searing yet elaborate sound and haunting lyrics for a creative dynamic that subverts expectations and transcends boundaries. After the band’s recent run of singles - ‘Atlas Falls’, ‘Attention Attention’, ‘Get Up’, ‘Monsters’ and ‘Devil’ - the band set a new all-time record for most #1 hits on American mainstream Rock songs’ charts, Billboard placed her at #1 on the “Greatest Of All Time Mainstream Rock Artists Chart”. With 10 million albums sold worldwide, 14 platinum and gold singles, over 4.5 billion global streams, platinum or gold awards for all their albums, 17 #1 hits on the American “Active Rock” charts, top 5-point finishes on Billboard’s “Mainstream Rock Songs” chart for all 27 singles in their career and countless sold-out arena tours and festival performances around the globe, SHINEDOWN is a major cultural entity with millions of fans around the world. The last, once again highly acclaimed studio album ‘Attention Attention’ (2018) reached number 5 in the US charts, number 21 in Germany and number 8 in the UK.


Source: Press Release

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