THE FIVE HUNDRED

A World On Fire is out on July 30th, 2021 via Long Branch Records
As the world closed its frontiers, boarded up their cities, and locked themselves inside, The Five Hundred closed themselves off from the rest of society for 6 months to write their follow up to the hugely successful and critically acclaimed debut, ‘Bleed Red’.
The album focuses on a morbid theme of environmental devastation, rising sea levels, climate disaster, and the ensuing loss of entire ecosystems, cities and millions of human lives.
A subject that is particularly close to their hearts, guitarist & lyricist Mark Byrne passionately talks about the band’s inspiration behind the album…
“The environmental catastrophe that is headed our way will cause more deaths than COVID-19 and the solution will be far more complicated than a simple vaccine. We are all lost our shit during this pandemic, but what’s coming next is so fucked up, we won’t know what hit us. We are simply not ready for this.”
“We normally revel in ambiguity, and believe in leaving room for interpretation. Spoon feeding our listeners has never really been our style, but for this record we felt the need to be blunt and direct.”
BLACK DOGS:
“A song about isolation and the plague of mental health, which spreads through society like a contagion of anxiety, paranoia and suicidal ideations.”
Vocalist John Woods-Eley speaks of the personal mental torment that inspired him to write him to write the track…
“When you are suffering from mental health issues, you are completely alone in your head, standing on the edge, descending into the darkness. No one can jump inside you and help you fight your demons… you’re just on your own. We live on a beautiful planet but an ugly world, surrounded by breath-taking beauty, but all we want to do is set it on fire… that depresses, terrifies and angers me in equal measures. Look around us at what we have created. Plagues, floods, and fires. You can’t make this shit up, it’s fucking biblical!“
THE RISING TIDE:
“2020 The year people are literally dying to forget. But as humanity struggles to cope with the effects of this pandemic, the fact remains that we’re teetering upon the precipice of something far, far worse.”
Never a band to shy away from the inconvenient truth, ‘The Rising Tide’ is the second single released from The Five Hundred’s upcoming sophomore album, via Long Branch Records.
And as this sonic monster-in-the-making begins its long sweep towards our proverbial ragged shores, guitarist Mark Byrne is ready to drag the waters – and reveal the inspiration behind the track.
“The environmental catastrophe that is headed our way will cause more deaths than COVID-19 and the solution will be far more complicated than a simple vaccine. We are all losing our shit at this pandemic, but what’s coming next is so fucked up, we won’t know what hit us. We are simply not ready for this. It’s not as bad as you think – it’s much, MUCH worse. Up until now, the scientific, political and even public discourse has focused on increasing temperatures – degrees Celsius. In the next few years, we will talk about it in terms of meters of sea level rise. Life as we know it, will not be the same, and we are just letting it play out in front of our very own eyes. That depresses me beyond belief, so I had to write about it. We are sinking in a deep blue hell. Many of the people and places we know and love, will be dragged out to the sea. Sit back and enjoy the horror show, because it’s your apocalypse, and you fucking paid for it. Hop on for the ride.”
OUR DEMISE:
“I remember reading a paper about how people can pass away simply because they’ve given up. Life has beaten them and they feel defeat is inescapable. It was a study by researchers about the ‘clinical markers’ for ‘give-up-itis’, a crude term used to describe what is known medically as psychogenic death. It usually follows a trauma from which a person thinks there is no escape, making death seem like the only rational outcome. If not arrested, death usually occurs three weeks after the first stage of withdrawal.”
The researcher quoted:
“Psychogenic death is real. It isn’t suicide, it isn’t linked to depression, but the act of giving up on life and dying usually within days, is a very real condition often linked to severe trauma.”
“It’s a subject matter that triggers thoughts, perhaps analogously, that we are experiencing a societal or ecological version of this. We have given up on ourselves, and we have just accepted that this is the only, inevitable conclusion, to fade away, wide-eyed and hopeless. As a society we swing from the opposite ends of the pendulum, of environmental activism, which society bizarrely labels as ‘extremism’ to the flaccid apathy of ‘middle-of-the-road Joe Public’, who questions whether any of this is even real. We don’t need two polar opposites to war with each other, we need the middle ground to get the fuck in the water and learn to swim. We haven’t decided if this song is about fighting on or giving up… I guess we’ll let the listener decide…”
THE WARMTH:
“Humans are a strange species. When we see chaos, we seek to find patterns in the mess. It’s almost as if we cannot handle the instability, so we need to come up with crackpot ideas about secret societies planning this mess. This song is about conspiracy theories, and how we prefer to believe in them than in the truth, because we can’t face the cold, hard facts.”
WALLS OF JERICHO:
“It’s fair to say that not a single one of us in the band is religious, but the biblical battle of Jericho bears some significance… in that it reminds us that our enemy cannot be defeated with physical weapons, but rather by a crowd of loud voices.”
YOUR APOCALYPSE:
“A grave to bury all our shame inside”…
“Sets the tone for this bleak depiction of the hell we are creating for ourselves. It’s a grim image of what our world is fast becoming. Oceans on fire… Giant storms colliding… You paid for the seat, but you’re only going to use the edge of it. Here is Your Apocalypse, jump on for the ride.”
WITH SCARS:
“Why did I feel like writing this song? We talk about the impact of the world’s climate going to shit, extreme natural disasters wiping out entire towns and villages and that is scary enough. Now imagine that the ones that will feel the impact are disproportionately the people who already live in abject poverty. Yeah, some rich fuckers in London, Manhattan, and Miami are gonna be ‘inconvenienced’, but it’s the people who are already in the slums that will be hit the hardest, ‘cos they’ll have no place to hide.”
OUR CURSE:
“By far the angriest song on the album, and if you still don’t know what we are angry about, then you haven’t been paying attention! Our hatred for you is as pure as it is loud…”
AGONY:
“Nothing makes you come to terms with your own mortality more than holding your child in your arms for the first time. When I first held her, the stark realisation that one day I’ll be gone, and I have to prepare this human for life when I am no longer there to protect her. That hit me like a brick wall, and it scared the shit out of me. At a moment when I should have been the happiest man on the planet, I felt the black dogs walking behind me. The song deals with the Agony of anxiety and depression, a recurring theme throughout my lyrics, because, guess what? It’s been a recurring theme throughout my life. If you don’t face it and confront it head on, it can swallow you up. Sometimes it can creep on you because of external factors… Sometimes it is of my own making. If I don’t sort my shit out, I can effectively become the architect of my own self destruction.”
A WORLD ON FIRE:
“The concept for the title track and for the album itself, was borne out of sheer frustration, at our inability to deal with the crisis. A global problem needs a global solution, and whilst we watch the apocalypse slowly unravel, we continue to war with each other, weep into the ocean, and breathe in the flames. In the end we will scream for redemption, and regret the mess we made, but by that point it will be too late.”
ARTWORK CONCEPT from Giannis:
”I fell for the band’s concept from the very first minute. These lads are touching subjects that are important for ours and our children’s future. These topics should not be ignored and the fact the album is dedicated to them made me happy to be involved with on it. Regarding the art, i wanted a more iconic approach. Less realistic, less detailed and as much personalized as possible. The main idea of the man having his hands around the planet was given by the band so I had the basic image in my head. I tried to deliver an unusual piece in terms of aesthetics going a bit out of my comfort zone. Having the man dissolve and the planet being on fire, pretty much sums up the idea of our suffering world. I hope the album finds its way to lots of ears and open minds and that it works as a gateway to understanding these important messages. It is in our hands to keep the planet and our future safe.”
Aggressive yet euphoric, empowering yet simultaneously enslaving, The Five Hundred are renowned for overcoming adversities and laying siege to every stage they play.
Their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Bleed Red’ told the story of a band struggling with Tourette’s, OCD, and drug addiction.
It’s now the band’s time to share with the world how they’ve battled through their vices and come out on top.
After successful tours up & down the country, Eastern Europe/Russia & an appearance at the iconic Download festival in 2019, the quintet are back and angrier than ever with their follow up album.
May 2020, and only a few months into the pandemic, we saw the release of their first single, ‘Black Dogs’, a song about isolation and the plague of mental health, which spreads through society like a contagion of anxiety, paranoia and suicidal ideations.
As the world closed its frontiers, boarded up their cities, and locked themselves inside, The Five Hundred closed themselves off from the rest of society for 6 months to write their sophomore album.
The album’s second ‘The Rising Tide’ gave a glimpse into what will become a central theme to the band and their music in this coming cycle:
Environmental devastation, rising sea levels, climate disaster, and the ensuing loss of entire ecosystems, cities and millions of human lives.
“The environmental catastrophe that is headed our way will cause more deaths than COVID-19 and the solution will be far more complicated than a simple vaccine. We are all losing our shit at this pandemic, but what’s coming next is so fucked up, we won’t know what hit us. We are simply not ready for this. It’s not as bad as you think – it’s much, MUCH worse. Up until now, the scientific, political and even public discourse has focused on increasing temperatures – degrees Celsius. In the next few years, we will talk about it in terms of meters of sea level rise. Life as we know it, will not be the same, and we are just letting it play out in front of our very own eyes. That depresses me beyond belief, so I had to write about it. We are sinking in a deep blue hell. Many of the people and places we know and love, will be dragged out to the sea. Sit back and enjoy the horror show, because it’s your apocalypse, and you fucking paid for it. Hop on for the ride.”
The album concept weaves through various aspects of a generation-defining crisis, from flood to furnace…
A fitting soundtrack for the coming apocalypse.