This week we have finally finished mixing the Reforged in Extinction live album with Talon Payne at Gallow Wood Media. The CD release will be ready soon, along with a Patreon exclusive video of the event. The album was recorded at the band’s five-year anniversary celebration of the current lineup of Rage Sadler, Liam Etheridge, Toby Woods, and Isaac Healy coming together in May 2018. The album contains a selection of songs from both Reforge The Steel and After Extinction, as well as one track from the Extinction After EP. This was recorded at Three Wise Monkeys, Colchester, earlier this year. You can pre-order the new live album here.
Our new music video for Green to Grey from the album After Extinction has broken over 43 thousand views since its launch on Friday. This has been achieved through a number of Google Ads (which make up 91.6% of the views) and a Facebook advert campaign, both being run simultaneously which we will be doing and adjusting on an ongoing basis. So far, while the campaign has generated a lot of views, with over 500 people checking out the Bandcamp from the video, a 159 people subscribing to the channel however this is yet to transfer to a single sale of the album.
I thought I would do a write-up on the closing period of what has been one of the busiest periods in the band’s history.
As many will know, we started work on After Extinction back in 2019, the plan was to put it together and record it in 2020 however Covid happened, and everything was delayed. Trying to finish this album while trying to work on our Patreon projects has been a challenge! We only just finished recording the After Extinction album this year, before editing, mixing, and mastering it enabling us to finally release it digitally in September. We’ve been set back a year and playing catchup.
The After Extinction album has been one of our most successful records on launch, despite an initially slow start the pre-orders were over a 100, with additional downloads and our streaming numbers for the new album have reached record numbers due to the success on YouTube. It obviously feels good to have that sort of response. What’s interesting is that in terms of reviews and press coverage, this album has received the least amount of media attention. We have had two reviews in so far, one being good and one average. Obviously with finances tight we don’t have the finances to pay for a press agent, manager, PR team, or whatever else, so we really rely on word of mouth and our own social media. So far, the best promotion for the new album has come from the NWOTHM Full Albums channel.
The album was a departure from much of the sound and imagery we were known for, so it was a gamble, there’s a lot less NWOBHM influence on the new record compared to previous. It’s a darker, heavier album than any of our previous releases and deals with much more complex subjects lyrically. I am glad most of the feedback has been positive.
On top of finishing the new album, we are still catching up with the backlog of work to be done with our EPs. We had the 21’ Patreon EP which has been delayed due to the need to focus on getting the album done. I will have finished recording the vocals on the 25th of November (I hope!) and we can begin the mixing stage after that. On the Falling Through Freedom EP, I will have hopefully finished recording that on Sunday. I am also getting the artwork completed with the new artist, you can see a sneak peek of the 21’ EPs art here.
We have never had a year where we worked on three different studio releases simultaneously, it has been a massive workload to juggle but I am feeling a great sense of relief now were almost there with both EPs and I can only apologise for the delay in getting these out to you!
The 21’ EP, which will be named soon when the artwork is released, is a heavier release than even our new album! 5 brand new songs, again continuing a darker tone to previous Kaine material. The 22’ EP is five songs to celebrate ten years of our debut album, which includes re-recordings of 3 songs from the original album and two that didn’t make the original release.
On top of the studio work, and our regular gigs and rehearsals we also jumped on a tour with Lillian Axe and Riot Act in August which was a great experience. So, this year we have worked on three releases and toured! As I said I can’t recall a time when we were as busy as we have been this year! We will have played 22 shows by the years end too, having played everywhere from Hastings to Edinburgh, to Swansea and back to Colchester!
So, what’s the plan? After we have released both of the new EPs, we will be announcing our 2023 Patreon pack! Next year there will be yet another new EP, shirt, and patch and we will have details of those soon.
You can order the new album here, and grab both new EPs here.
Our CD has finally broken 100 pre-orders on Bandcamp. This means the album has covered the cost of the printing for thew new CD. the CD will be printed to the highest industry standards and limited to just 500 copies. The CD comes in a super jewel case and contains a full colour lyric booklet. You can still pre-order the album for a lower price here.
The album has been played 10,023 times already on the channel.
Our new album has broken ten thousand plays over at NWOTHM Full Albums! The new album has easily been our most successful for streaming on release as not only has NWOTHM Full albums been a success but all three single releases generated thousands of plays before the release of the album, with the single A Slave to The Grind being played over 10,099 times alone!
For those who prefer CD’s, we’re continuing to honour the pre-order prices until the finished product is shipped. You can order from here.
The album has had over 9500 plays on NWOTHM Full Album
We have given the approval to the final artwork for our new album artwork with the printers. The job will now begin and we are hopeful the CD’s will be available to be sent out to those who have pre-ordered soon. We will be honouring the pre-order price until they have been sent out, so to get the limited edition CD at the reduced price please click here.
The artwork templates are with the printers for checking and all the tracks have been uploaded. As previously stated, these will again come in Super Jewell cases, including a full lyric booklet and the CDs will be printed to the highest industry standard. Once these are given the green light the printing will begin and then it’s just a case of getting the CDs shipped back so they can be sent out.
Unfortunately, the pre-orders did not cover the costs of the printing of the CDs, and we again had to borrow money to fund the difference in order to get these printed. Streaming numbers so far have been strong, but the revenue from these streams is paid out later down the line and wouldn’t cover the costs of the printing either. This has meant we had a delay in paying for the printing to take place.
Due to the album being begun pre-covid, this has been our most expensive album to date having had many delays due to the pandemic. It was recorded between two studios and had more people work on it than our previous releases due to the nature of the restrictions we were under during 2020-21. This has meant that not only has it had to be delayed multiple times (along with both EPs) we have had to continue to borrow money to cover the substantial losses from the recording process and had to borrow more money to fund the tour back in August.
We can only apologise for the delays and problems we have had with all three releases. We have not been helped by a challenging economic situation coupled with a decline in the sale of physical media such as CDs with streaming overtaking the market, which brings in very little revenue compared to physical media.
We are always very honest about our position and will continue to be. The band is in a significant amount of debt having survived Covid with no gigs and is trying to recover from that period and get all of the promised releases finished this year so we can move on to 2023 with a clean slate. There is no label funding this band, and no management behind it. We are working on this on our own.
Our new album has been streamed close to 32k times since we released it last month. We are still to receive streaming numbers from all the channels/streaming platforms but the breakdown for far is:
YouTube: 24,114
Spotify: 2,645
Bandcamp: 2,312
Facebook: 2,634
YouTube represents the largest chunk of our streams so far, with Spotify being the second most popular place to listen. There have been 78 CD pre-orders so far with 56 digital sales on Bandcamp. This further shows that streaming rather than buying is now firmly the most popular way to consume music for the majority.
The CD pre-order has been delayed slightly due to a change of templates with the printers, we are awaiting the new templates before we can send the job off for printing. We will continue to honour the pre-order price until the CDs arrive. You can pre-order here.
So far our new album After Extinction has been streamed 27,472 across all platforms since release. Current royalty pay-outs for streams are as follows:
Streaming is by far the most popular way for music to be heard in 2022. To compare with our physical sales, so far there has been 70 copies of the album sold on CD as a pre-order through Bandcamp.
We now have the new album photos back from the photographer and are able to complete the artwork ready for submission with the duplication company. As stated previously these will be printed to the highest industry standard and houses in a super Jewell case. Included will be a full set of lyrics.
While we await production, we will extend the pre-order period for the duration. This means the price will remain at just £13 for the CD. You can pre-order the CD here.
