The band’s new album arrives next month
Death metal legends Job For a Cowboy have unleashed another new song from their forthcoming album, Moon Healer. The all-new “Beyond the Chemical Doorway” can be streamed now below. It follows the previously released single, “The Forever Rot.”
Compared to past offerings, Moon Healer is as bone-crushing as the band has ever been. But it’s more consistent and conceptual, composed with the utmost enthusiasm and confidence. “The evolution of our sound has become a big part of the band,” Davy says. “As we mature as musicians, our tastes and interests naturally expand. With age comes more experience and ideas that we wouldn’t have considered in our earlier years.”
When discussing the lyrical genesis of songs like “Grinding Wheels Of Ophanim,” “Into The Crystalline Crypts,” and latest single, “Beyond The Chemical Doorway,” Davy’s writing gets cryptic and elliptical-sounding, part Philip K. Dick, part Timothy Leary. “I envision this as a death metal album born from the mystical confines of an alchemist’s laboratory. The music acts as potent potions, inducing hallucinogenic journeys that unlock the secrets of the universe.”
With “Beyond The Chemical Doorway,” Davy explores Gnosticism – an occult teaching based on Gnosis, a state of transcendence achieved through intuitive, unconventional means – by way of Hieronymus Bosch’s art. Elaborates Davy, “On Moon Healer, we unravel the dismal narrative of a close friend consumed by an unwavering pursuit of enlightenment. They achieve this through a compulsive embrace of hallucinogenic drugs. This storyline emerges from the foundation set in our earlier album, Sun Eater, delving deeper into the intricacies brewing within our friend’s psyche.
“When under the influence of these drugs,” he continues, “this individual claimed to encounter entities and find themselves in indescribable worlds that defy rational comprehension. Many who undergo such experiences draw intriguing parallels between diverse facets of Gnostic philosophy, biblical depictions of angels, and the stages of Bardo Thodol delineated in the Tibetan Book Of The Dead. In the album’s opener, ‘Beyond The Chemical Doorway,’ our friend vividly voices his hallucinations, recounting the experience of breaching forbidden, gnostic-like realms, with each account culminating in the utter unraveling of his being.”
The band’s brand new album arrives on February 23 through Metal Blade. It will be released on CD, digitally, and on vinyl in several color variants which can be viewed below. It is the band’s first proper studio effort in a decade.
Moon Healer was produced by Jason Suecof (Death Angel, The Black Dahlia Murder, Deicide) at his Audiohammer Studios and is the first Job For a Cowboy album to feature session drummer Navene Koperweis (ex-Animosity). Davy previously worked with Koperweis in the progressive death metal side project Fleshwrought, which released Dementia/Dyslexia through Metal Blade in 2010. Koperweis also worked as a session drummer for Machine Head and Whitechapel and is currently in the band Entheos, whose third full-length came out on Metal Blade in March 2023.
“Navene and I shared a bond that goes back to my late teens when we became comrades in the metal scene,” Davy says. “Some of Job For a Cowboy’s earliest shows and tours were with Animosity. So, reaching out to Navene to play a major part in this project was a no-brainer.”
Although Job For a Cowboy worked tirelessly on their new batch of complex, multi-faceted songs, recording Moon Healer was ultimately a labor of love that reminded Davy why he wanted to be in a band in the first place.
“There’s so much spontaneity and fun experimentation that occurs when we work with Jason Suefcof,” Davy says. “It’s a nostalgic energy that brings you back to the days when you were teenagers writing riffs in garages.”
Job For a Cowboy – Moon Healer [Metal Blade, 2024]
1. Beyond the Chemical Doorway
2. Etched in Oblivion
3. Grinding Wheels of Ophanim
4. The Sun Gave Me Ashes so I Sought Out the Moon
5. Into the Crystalline Crypts
6. A Sorrow-Filled Moon
7. The Agony Seeping Storm
8. The Forever Rot
Vinyl US:
Purple w/ Black Smoke
Blue And White Marbled
Pink And White Marbled
Magenta Marble (Independent Retailers)
Vinyl EU:
Dark Purple Marbled (1000 copies)
Ice Blue Marbled (500 copies)
White w/ Purple Splattered (300 copies)
Blue/White Split Splattered (300 copies)