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Norway’s wryest export BOKASSA welcome in the new year by dropping possibly their most sardonic single yet. After touring with Therapy? right up to the Christmas festivities, BOKASSA barely pause for breath, ricocheting into 2024 with the release of bold new single “The Ending Starts Today.” The track is taken from their upcoming, new album All Out Of Dreams, due out February 16th via Indie Recordings.
BOKASSA quip, “What better than to start 2024 with a brand new “demotivational poster” in song form? Why not accept failure already, instead of clinging on to that last bit of hope? Say no more, friend! Bokassa’s here with a rifftastic new barnburner that will fulfill all your pessimistic needs for the new year!”
All Out Of Dreams was recorded by Tue Madsen (Meshuggah, The Haunted, Halford) at Antfarm Studios in Denmark. Over its ten songs and an all-killer, no-filler 30 minutes, BOKASSA remain as fond of mixing genres as ever! In an age where everything sounds the same, it has also always been important to BOKASSA that each record is sonically different.
The power trio offer everything from riffy stoner metal in “Bradford Death Squadron” (that also features special guest Aaron Beam from stoner rockers Red Fang), almost progressive skatepunk in “No More Good Days,” 45 seconds of metallic hardcore in “Everyone Fails In The End,” to laid-back Izzy Stradlin bottleneck-riffing on the desert rocker “Gung Ho.” Fans got their first taste of new music earlier this year via heavy-hitting belter, “Garden Of Heathen.” A melodically-driven, stoner punk track that’s unmistakably BOKASSA, its hefty drums, smooth riffs, and catchy lyrics are only enhanced further by guest vocals from New York hardcore legend, Lou Koller (Sick Of It All); this album marking the first time the group have had guests on a record. Follow-up single, the stoner punk title track “All Out Of Dreams” is filled to the brim with attitude and frustrated, pissed-off pessimism.
The album is available to pre-order in multiple formats including digipack CD, magenta vinyl, black vinyl, and purple with blue jay splatter vinyl, as well as digitally. Pre-order here (from Indie Recordings) or here (from Plastichead).
BOKASSA conclude, “All Out Of Dreams is an album where the feeling of resignation is present on several of the album’s tracks. Whether it deals with one’s own failures, maybe you feel the system failed you, perhaps because of failed government policies, or that you’ve just given up on it all. The common denominator is that everyone you encounter, or hear from in the lyrics have lost hope, which is something the album’s title – All Out Of Dreams – alludes to. The name of the album could also be seen as direct reference to our own career, and the dream of owning our own private island in the Pacific. Unfortunately the masses have yet to develop good taste in music, so that dream is rather non-existent at this time.”
ABOUT BOKASSA
BOKASSA have made a name for themselves with their brand of hard-hitting, melodic, catchy punk and stoner rock, right from their attention-getting, first full length, Divide & Conquer (2017). During the Worldwired tour with METALLICA (for which they were handpicked by Lars Ulrich), the band released the critically acclaimed Crimson Riders (2019). In 2020, they followed up by releasing a digital EP, Live At The BBC, from their BBC Radio 1 live session at London’s legendary Maida Vale studio, and were nominated for a Norwegian Grammy as “Breakthrough Of The Year”. In 2021, BOKASSA won the Norwegian “Bendiksprisen” award and released their explosive third album Molotov Rocktail. The record shot immediately to #18 on the Norwegian chart, their highest spot to date. The album was met with critical acclaim from Kerrang, Rock Hard, Adresseavisen, and Metal Hammer among others, with the latter boldly declaring, “With such eminent replayability, Molotov Rocktail threatens to burst the bubble separating ‘classic – sounding’ records and straight – up classics, easily delivering the most fun stoner record since Monster Magnet’s Powertrip in the process.”
With extensive further touring under their belt with the likes of Mastodon, Baroness, Therapy?, and Judas Priest, not to mention performing at some of the world’s biggest festivals (Wacken, Hellfest, Download, Rockfest, Øya, Stavern, Tons of Rock and more), BOKASSA have continued to capture the hearts and minds of thousands across the world. With the new album only set to further cement the band’s enviable reputation, BOKASSA are taking no prisoners.
BOKASSA are:
Jørn Kaarstad – Lead Vocals,Guitar
Bård Linga – Bass, Vocals
Olav Dowkes – Drums, Vocals
Bokassa online
Photo credit Troll Toftenes
