Forever Dying In Your Eyes (Liquid Len Recording Company, August 2022) is the first new album in more than a decade from UK industrial post-punk band History Of Guns. Sometimes completely electronic, sometimes a full 5-piece rock band – over the past quarter century, the multi-genre group’s output has been variously described as “electropunk”, “disco”, “goth rock”, “techno”, “alternative rock”, “indie”, “punk”, and much more in between and beyond.
History Of Guns formed in Hertfordshire, England, 1996. They became frontrunners of the UK Wasp Factory / FuturePunk scene of the early 2000s, while their 2004 album, Your Obedient Servant, was
later championed in The Quietus by Mick Mercer as one of the “thirty best goth albums of all time”.
In their latest incarnation, co-founders Del Alien (vocals) and Max Rael (keyboards, programming) are joined in History Of Guns by newest member Jamu Knight (guitars).
Asked about the inspirations behind the new album, Forever Dying In Your Eyes, Max Rael replies:
“Del and I were both struggling with mental health issues. Previously, I think we’d found that being creative and making music, while not exactly making us any better, at least gave us a focus and a reason. It’s up to each of us to make our own meaning in life, and with this album I think there’s a kind of fatalistic acceptance. It’s subtitled, ‘Eight Songs for Turning a Corner’. Everyone has their own individual reality tunnel, and is a victim of all sorts of subconscious confirmation bias. As History Of Guns, we create a specific world, which we invite the listener to join with each album we’ve done. Hopefully, our world overlaps with the listeners’ emotional and mental landscape, so that for the length of the album, there’s a co-created space of escapism, openness, darkness and light.”
The new album has already been praised by Auxiliary Magazine (US) for “those invisible hooks [that] will sink further in”; and described by Liverpool Sound and Vision (UK) as “an album that is polished, dramatic, full of poise and binding sentiment, and [is] one of awesome sound and feeling.”
