After the phenominal worldwide success of their debut album Tu in 2018, New Zealand metal outfit Alien Weaponry have continued a mereoric rise to the head of the international heavy metal snake, commanding respect for their music and live performances both in their native country and on a global scale.
Combining elemts of thrash and groove metal with lyrics in their native indigenous language - te reo Māori - the three young Kiwis struck a fresh market with their vigorous musicianship and heartfelt music.
Here was finally a band that people could relate to and respect, especially the younger generation, and their success looks set to reach even further heights with the imminent release of Tangaroa which will be out on September 17 via Napalm Records.
Brothers Henry and Lewis de Jong sat down with HEAVY to chat about the album and future plans.
"Musically, it's a lot more progressive compared to our last album," Lewis began. "It's still Alien Weaponry but we've evolved our sound and kind of evolved as people as well so some of the things we're writing about are quite different but also hold true to who we are as a band."
"We've got a lot more progressive in the way we song write," Henry affirmed. "I feel like we're exploring a lot of different things with this album. There's not all hard, heavy hitting songs. There's some really almost etherial stuff we're doing. As far as the Maori side of the song writing goes, I experimented using more traditional Maori song writing methods."
In the full interview, the boys discuss the album in greater detail, talk us through some of the traditional instruments used in the recording, growing up in the spotlight, fitting centuries of stories into one song, staying true to their heritage, their new bass player and what he brings to the band plus more.