Metal
Power Trip have put out “Precinct 3” and “Scavenger”, a double single on Blue Grape Music and the Dallas band’s first new material since singer Riley Gale died on 25 August 2020. The label has a full album down for spring 2027, after more than a year of studio work.
Seth Gilmore, a friend and collaborator of the band for years, handles the vocals: he sings in Skourge and fronts Fugitive, the Dallas thrash band he started in 2021 with Blake Ibanez, guitarist and founding member of Power Trip. Nick Stewart is on second guitar, Chris Whetzel on bass and Chris Ulsh on drums.
Both tracks were cut at Empire Sound in Carrollton, Texas, with Jacob Hansen —Arch Enemy, Volbeat, Amon Amarth— whom the band had never worked with before. “Recording worked out really well for us because he has the knowledge of making these big records, but also comes from the late ’80s extreme metal underground,” Ulsh says. “We’re tough to please because we want something that sounds current, but most importantly we want it to sound like us.”
“When we were writing this, we wondered what Riley would have wanted to write about,” Ibanez says of “Precinct 3”, which deals with unchecked authority. “So once we decided on that approach, it honestly came really easily — the lyrics were flowing and it just felt like the right way to kick off this new chapter and honor him.”
“Precinct 3” runs at 205 beats per minute; “Scavenger” sits at mid-tempo. The band’s last studio album is “Nightmare Logic”, from 2017.
Text by Roger Estivill