Progressive metalcore project ONI, have today unleashed a brand new track, ‘Heart To Stone’, taken from their forthcoming studio album, ‘Loathing Light.’ The collection is set to land on June 17th, via Ironshore Records. ‘Heart To Stone’ is accompanied by a vampiric official video which you can watch below.
ONI‘s creative force, Jake Oni tells us,
“Heart To Stone shows a different side of me and is a song that really set me in a new direction for what ONI could be. I love being able to straddle the line of heavy and clean vocals. This is one I can’t wait to sing live.”
Last month, ONI revealed another album track, ‘Secrets’, featuring guest vocals from punk icon Iggy Pop and Lamb of God frontman, Randy Blythe. The track picked up numerous spins at rock radio across the globe, including the prestigious BBC Radio 1 Rock Show with Daniel P. Carter. ‘Secrets’, plus the previously released ‘The Lie’ and ‘War Ender‘ featuring NYC trap metal outfit, City Morgue all feature on the band’s forthcoming second album, which you can pre-order/pre-save here.
With ‘Loathing Light’, ONI have delivered a body of work that boasts an even bigger sound than their debut. The collection arrives with conviction, passion and depth, swaying wildly back and forth between vast, uplifting anthems and dark, raw confessions. It will go down as a mission statement for the young band, created by singer/lyricist Jake Oni, together with his closest allies, producer Josh Wilbur (Megadeth, Avenged Sevenfold, Gojira) and Lamb Of God guitarist, Mark Morton.
The result is 10 tracks spanning an emotional gamut, from all-out brutality to introspective desperation. Songs like ‘Against My Sins’ and ‘Heart To Stone’ wouldn’t sound totally out of place in a playlist alongside Of Mice & Men or Linkin Park. Yet the bludgeoning technicality – which earned ONI fans while touring with technical heavyweights Gojira – remains, making ‘Loathing Light’ a diverse and definitive album.
Jake and Mark had previously collaborated on Morton’s debut solo album, ‘Anesthetic’, with Jake executive producing and co-writing the collection’s #6 Active Rock radio hit, ‘Cross Off’ with Morton, Wilbur and the late Chester Bennington.
Jake continues, “Music is such a gift. If you can make music, and people respond to it? I’ve learned not to take that for granted. Count your blessings because the opportunity to make music is such a great one. We should always be grateful. Because it’s the coolest job anyone could do.”
‘Loathing Light’ tracklisting:
The Lie
Against My Sins
Secrets feat. Randy Blythe & Iggy Pop
Awaken
War Ender feat. City Morgue
Heart To Stone
Battery Tomb
Sequence Static
Gasoline
Golden
In modern times, the demonic ONI figure of Japanese Folklore transformed into a personification of protection, often adorning rooftops or leading festive parades to ward off evil. In this same spirit, the crushing aggressive music of ONI, the band, acts as an empowering weapon. ONI casts out the cruel demons of self-hatred, addiction, and whatever destructive obstacles one might face.
The band Metal Injection described as “key figures in paving the way for a new wave of progressive metalcore,” is led by frontman Jake Oni, who summons cathartic anthems from personal pain. In 2014, Jake first conceived of ONI as “the band I never got to see,” recruiting different players with technical skills to make music that shook the foundations of the scene. Comparisons to genre heavyweights like Meshuggah, Between The Buried And Me, and Protest The Hero came swiftly.
ONI released Ironshore on Metal Blade Records in 2016, heralded by No Clean Singing as “maybe the most impressive debut I’ve heard this year.” Songs like ‘The Only Cure,’ ‘Barn Burner,’ and ‘Eternal Recurrence’ whipped audiences into a frenzy as ONI traveled the globe. The band shared club and festival stages with Gojira, Turnstile, Code Orange, and Rob Zombie, among others.
ONI’s 2019 single ‘Alone’ racked up over 1.3M spins on Spotify alone.
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