Kissing Candice

"Pretty, ugly, gross, bloody, pissed, catchy, heavy." These are the words spewed from KISSING CANDICE frontman Joey Simpson when describing the bands album, Blind Until We Burn, in stores now on Victory Records.

Blind Until We Burn is one of the most blood-drenched doses of violence that has been put to ears. Distinct themes of angry defiance and horror-laced hysteria snake throughout the album, which Simpson bodes, "Sometimes you never see things for what they are until it's too late."

Formed in 2012 from the remnants of Dr. Acula, keyboardist and sample mastermind Joey Simpson was looking to start a project that would combine metal, hardcore, industrial and electronic music in a unique and cinematic fashion. Taking on the role of frontman, Joey hit the studio with producer Jeremy Comitas, and the pair were the first to glue the KISSING CANDICE sound together with the debut EP Murder. As guitarists Tommy 'Dreamer' Sciro, Walter Dicristina, and bassist Mike Grippo joined the band, their ideas soon spilled into the mix. Simpsons explains, "The KISSING CANDICE sound is always on an incline. Everyone brings their ideas to the table, it's not just one writer for music. Everyone has an input on everything, from guitar riffs to the lyrics to the electronics. "We'll take a riff from someone and cut that in half and add another riff to it and just build off that." Dicristina amends, "We wanted to create a record that sounds as cinematically expressive as our live performances look and feel."

The result is a spirited chunk of roughed-up American metal that is an amalgamation of serial killer thriller, dark romance and witchcraft, woven in a world of hallucinating demons.

"Each song on this album is different from the next, we try to write about a little of everything - horror movies, thinking positive, questioning everything from what the government feeds us to religious beliefs. From the people who support us to the people who talk shit about us. "There's a little something for everyone," promises Simpson. "We want this record to appeal to everyone. There is literally something for all types of listeners to grab on to," guitarist Tommy Sciro justifies. "If someone is having a bad day and want to hear something about being positive it will be there. If they want to just scream along cause they're angry or frustrated and need a release, they can."

Whether its distressing paranoia or a bloody discharged axe-wound, KISSING CANDICE bring a new vision of the macabre, pulling the listener to shake a layer of dust off a tired genre which too often trades intelligence for fantasy, substance for spectacle.