Ripped To Shreds Returning With New Album

07-30-2024

(Freeman) Ripped To Shreds explodes out of the underground with the new album 'Sanshi,' out September 27th on the mighty Relapse Records. Bearing all the blood-soaked hallmarks of their hellacious sound, 'Sanshi' is an onslaught of frenetic dueling solos, blasting drums, and van Drunen-esque vocals that further fuse the grit and grime of old-school Death Metal and Grind with the here and now.

"We wanted to come out of the gates swinging with our most morbid and grinding material yet. 'Perverting...' showcases our new live approach with constant vocal and solo tradeoffs, and we shot the video in Taiwan with a real Daoist priest as a natural extension of RTS' narrative approach to songwriting."

The band kicks off the album announcement with the single "Perverting the Funeral Rites, Stripping for the Dead" which is accompanied by a ferocious new music video available below. Helmed by guitarist and frontman Andrew Lee, RIPPED TO SHREDS is as fierce and focused as ever.

Conceptually, 'Sanshi' sees RIPPED TO SHREDS dig into a morbid fixation on death and the afterlife in the context of traditional Chinese folklore. Tracks like the lead single "Perverting the Funeral Rites, Stripped for the Dead" is a song inspired by obscure funeral rites in Taiwan, wherein exotic dancers perform lithe rituals for living and dead alike. Elsewhere, "Force Fed" delves into the legend of Meng Po's "Elixir of Forgetfulness", which when drunk by the dead wipes their memories clean before they are reborn into their next incarnation. "Living In Effigy" was inspired by real life tales of photographers traversing remote rural China, taking funeral portraits of the elderly who died in solitude.

'Sanshi''s cover art comes courtesy of Lee's long-term collaborator, artist Guang Yang, and depicts a scene of Yan Luo Wang, The God of Hell, and the dead who must face his judgment in his demonic court.