Most Precious Blood is in troubleagain. The artwork for upcoming album Merciless (Trustkill 9/20/05) has both U.S. distributor RED and European licensor, Roadrunner ready to shelve the album. We had no idea this would happenthis time. Swears Justin Brannan (guitarist/co-lyricist) Merciless cover features an authentic looking corpse in an apartment with his mail stacking up. It's real life, its someone our age that just dies and no one cares enough to notice. Such is MPB assessment of life today. Weve got World War 3 going on; we have no time for poetry and guitar solos. Its back to the old school of hardcore, get in, say what you want to say and get out. More than ever, hardcore should write that the end of the world can come tomorrow, instead most bands are writing like we have our whole life ahead of us. We wanted to write an album that isnt dumbed down but has short songs with lyrics you can relate to immediately.Immediate is exactly what MPB are, they are dead serious about their causes, their message, their fans and hardcore as a lifestyle. The band has become a living embodiment of DIY lifestyle from early on booking their own tours, creating their own t-shirts, maintaining their own website to every facet you can imagine of a band. While the cover of Merciless may be shocking, unlike many of their metal and grind contemporaries, Brannan, Rachel (guitar) Rob Fusco (vocals), Matt Miller (bass) and new drummer Colin Kercz arent using shock value as a marketing tool, but like their music, their albums are used to communicate to their audience. 2003s full-length Our Lady Of Annihilation shocked many industry types with its cover depicting the Madonna with a bomb strapped to her chest. However as Brannan says it was meant to make a statement about how ludicrous it is to kill for a fictional character such as the Virgin Mary. Many religious fanatics, and I mean ALL religions including Catholicism, are willing to sacrifice their life for someone they have never met and I find it absurd. The Catholic born Brannan has a strong anti-organized religion streak that has carried through his musical career. This began in the early 90s when Brooklyn, NY dwelling Brannan and Rachel (guitar) were in Indecision, one of the earliest superstars of metal-core. That group with many of their lyrics being written by Brannan had a strong political stance and a cynical eye towards organized religion, government, big business and many western concepts. A watermark being their album, 'Release The Cure', whose main concept was that AIDS and many other illnesses were actually Government bred and that a cure was being held by the powers that be. This outspoken unit ran its course by the end of the 90s and Brannan took the name for their new band from Indecisions seminal second album, Most Precious Blood. The title actually referred to a catholic high school that had a fearsome basketball team that all competitors were afraid to face, including Brannans school.MPB began during the summer of 2000 continuing musically where Indecision left off but as years went by, the new unit joined the intensity and rage of their NYHC mentors (Sick Of It All, Agnostic Front and the Cro-Mags) along with the dark and depressing aesthetics of bands like Sisters of Mercy and The Cure. Like Indecision, MPB created their own hype by touring enough to make Black Flag look like agoraphobics. We did tours before Mapquest and cell phones and most bands today can't imagine that. Brannan states we would ride in a crowded van that broke down three times a day and play for whoever bothered to show up. Its not like we are looking for props but its just to show how much we appreciate everything we get, bands today expect everything to be handed to them, they feel theyre owed it after a year or two of being a band, whereas I think we appreciate it more, were not owed anything, we just earn it. Trustkill Records released the debut album Nothing In Vain in 2001 to a landslide of hardcore and critic approval.By the time 2003s 'Our Lady Of Annihilation' was recorded, Atlanta transplant Matt Miller was on bass and Sheehan had been replaced by Boston resident, Rob Fusco, who was vocalist for One King Down. Fusco, an energized bundle of facial hair is an animated and exciting front-man and unlike his predecessor writes most of his own lyrics. The lyrical theme of Our Lady Of Annihilation was loss, party due to the death of Brannans father and also due to 9/11s terrorist attacks. Being New York residents the band were first hand witnesses to the Trade Tower attacks as well as Rachel, who was in medical school and assisting at the City Coroner had to sort through severed limbs found in the World Trade Center wreckage for identification. Tours followed with Bleeding Through, Rise Against, The Explosion, Sick Of It All and the group headlining the PETA2 sponsored Compassion Over Fashion tour with Remembering Never. The members who are all heavily involved with animal rights are outspoken advocates of a vegetarian diet as well as a cruelty free lifestyle. One of the songs on the new album Diet For A New America espouses a meat free lifestyle. In Brannans words kids today can go to a Hot Topic store and buy a punk outfit but no one is there to teach them so called punk or hardcore ideals such as vegetarianism, were just trying to do our part. The owner of two rescued pit bulls Budgie and Basil, Brannan and Rachel recorded Caninus a grind-core outfit with the dogs on vocals as a fun excursion. What they didnt expect is the media onslaught that happened for a joke project with a 7. Caninus were featured in Blender, FHM, Vice as well as on NPR Radio. As these huge media outlets were loving the concept of a fake band and all it did was get a lot of ha ha, look at this, pass along web links from yuppies but none of them even mentioned the work that Most Precious Blood is doing, so it was a very frustrating experience. Outlets that DID cover Most Precious Blood over the last two years include MTV2s Headbangers Ball as well as on the pages of Alternative Press and Revolver Magazine.Armed with the most solid line-up in their history, MPB began writing Merciless in Jan. With the group spread between NYC, DC and upstate NY, a lot of musical ideas were developed via passing sound files through the internet. When the band went into Atomic Studios with Dean Baltulonis in May they not only had finished songs but string sections, electronic interludes and samples. The album is meant to be taken as a whole, so if you punch directly to a song you wont hear certain pieces. Brannan remarks, If you are in a band full time you have got to write for yourself, otherwise youll go nuts. We are happy to be writing music that matures with us but always has that urgency at its heart that made you lose your mind when you were 14. We want hardcore to be something different again, like you feel youve discovered some secret society not a homogenized rebellion.
