Following a run of live performances in 2023 that included support for Goatwhore and Katatonia, HE WAS A GOD enlisted renowned engineer Ryan Boesch (Melvins, Helmet, Norma Jean) to craft its debut album. The result is Muckraker, an 11-track canon of aggression, hope, rage and optimism. Released February 23, 2024, Muckraker addresses social and political grievances common to us all. Its punk contrarianism, heavy riffs, and harmonious progressions are wholly He Was A God.
“Muckraker is a mirror. A huge, ornate, dirty, heavy fuckin’ mirror that Connecticut metal quintet He Was A God designed in 2023 and will unveil on February 23, 2024. Through eleven tracks, Muckraker reflects a society in serious need of reflection, and in the spirit of the 19th-century journalism from which its title derives, shines light on the corruption and absurdities of today. Its punk contrarianism, eccentric progressions, and take-no-prisoners intensity is full-throttle
He Was A God. Lift Muckraker with your knees, not your back.” – He Was A God
Today Metal Sucks premieres the video for “Game of Pretend” – the third single from Muckraker. The band shares, “Smart phones and social media promised us communication, connection, and community, but we got catfished. Instead, we got cyberbullies, deepfakes, and a crippling addiction to world that is not real. It’s a world where we tragically measure our own self worth by comparing ourselves to others. He Was A God’s newest track – ‘Game of Pretend’ – is about the dangers of the new great American addiction. We think it makes us happier. We are sadder now than we have ever been: we retreat to the pretend world to escape the real one and some of us don’t ever make it back.”
Watch “Game of Pretend” at Metal Sucks here
First Single “Class Dismissed” Premiered at Outburn January 8th
Second Single “The Great Divide” Premiered at Metal Injection February 6th
About HE WAS A GOD:
It’s a sauna of a Thursday night at Park City Music Hall in Black Rock, and Benjamin Curns isn’t having any of it. “How many of you are sick and tired?!” Megaphone angled at a swelling crowd, he already knows the answer: a whole lot of them. Show after show, night after night, always a whole lot of them. It’s covid isolation. It’s the planet in the flames of never-ending wars and police brutality. It’s the billionaire with his fingers in the till. A drug addled America goose-stepping her way toward tragedy. Under all these things, it’s the soil from which He Was A God took final shape in summer 2021.
Curns is the fifth and ultimate addition to the New Haven, Connecticut metal outfit–brainchild of guitarist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist Tony Pellino. Chris Densky (drums), Dan Perrone (bass) and Ray Zvovushe (lead guitars) cap a lineup of musicians who grew up performing together on stages across the New York City tristate area. Under their new banner, He Was A God made its live debut in December 2021, commencing a run of performances in Connecticut, New York and Massachusetts with metal veterans Life of Agony and (hed)P.E.
Through their live shows, wrote Karen Ponzio in The New Haven Independent, the band “unleashes a torrent of charismatic heavy metal with a message…as fun as it is furious.” Their EP, The Smile & The Scar (available on Apple Music, Spotify, and all other streaming platforms), recorded in fall 2021, received steady acclaim. From Headbangers Lifestyle: “The debut fires on all engines with ferocious riffing and tenacious melodies…fused with a downright genius timing for emotion and sheer agony.”
In 2023, following a run of live performances that included support for Goatwhore and Katatonia, the band enlisted renowned engineer Ryan Boesch (Melvins, Helmet, Norma Jean) to craft its debut album. The result is Muckraker, an 11-track canon of aggression, hope, rage and optimism. Dropping February 23, 2024, Muckraker swaps the personal tragedies of The Smile & The Scar for social and political grievances common to us all. Its punk contrarianism, heavy riffs, and harmonious progressions are wholly He Was A God.
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