STAKE released new single ‘Deliverance Dance’

Belgian alternative act STAKE has released their new prog-punk epic in the form of ‘Deliverance Dance’. The track is taken from the new album LOVE, DEATH and DECAY and is set for release on the 30th of September 2022 via Hassle Records. Fans can pre-order the album HERE.

‘Deliverance Dance’ is as bleak as it is romantic, and sees the band exploring love beyond boundaries, distance, and life itself. Vocalist/guitarist Brent Vanneste  speaks on their latest work offering:

“Well, we might really have a classic love song for you here darlings. It’s about softening one’s heart again and then dancing together towards redemption, surrendering to the beautiful after a long period of rusty feelings.” Vanneste continues by adding: “See it as a Deliverance Dance. The redemption to transcendental love beyond desire, attachment or loss, When I love in this way, I love beyond my relationship with a person. It doesn’t matter whether they are next to me, thousands of miles away or dead. But don’t be fooled. We’re still metal!”

Recalling an anecdote on the track’s conception, Brent adds:

“Joris not only wrote the lyrics for ‘Deliverance Dance’ but also thought for a moment, while recording this song, that he was in a parallel universe as a speed-addicted version of Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain. I guess you should give it a listen.”

MORE ON ‘LOVE, DEATH AND DECAY’

Brent Vanneste knows that love never dies. Mysteries of the heart, and those of the great hereafter, have rarely been far from the Stake frontman’s busy, offbeat brain. Never broken by the weight of grief or existential dread, however, he uses those feelings as fuel for a musical fire that’s as boldly unconventional as it is bracingly alive.

“This band is about all my inner darkness and demons, and finding a peaceful place in my head,” he grapples, preferring his songs to do the talking. “I’m not going to be able to erase them, but making music is a great way of arranging them and surviving this crazy life.”

That process began when he was just 13 years old. Forming Steak Number Eight in honour of his recently deceased brother Thobias Vanbrabant, Brent channeled the most aching personal tragedy into their first four albums, making the whole European rock scene sit up and take notice. The band’s 2018 rebrand (accompanying fifth album Critical Method) concluded this “mourning process” by moving away from that unwieldy original name, and the last few years have proven that you can never really leave these things behind. The band’s latest offering LOVE, DEATH and DECAY is a testament to that.

Guitarist Cis Deman is, by his own admission, far more of a cold realist than his frontman. The one-time funeral director is a dark foil to Brent’s flightier tendencies, and the contrast between their mindsets is key to the shape-shifting mood and captivating desolation of Stake’s brilliant new album.

Where Brent is more fixated on “love and death”, Cis explains frankly, his fascination lies in “death and decay.” The singer reflects on the meaning of the album title. On the evening his girlfriend’s aunt was dying, he watched the excellent Netflix documentary Fantastic Funghi. He was inspired by the fact that all matter is recycled into new life. Cis, contrastingly, unearths a far harsher recollection. Faced with the pandemic, he initially needed to counterpoint the pervasive misery with brighter sounds, but the loss of two of his cousins –brothers, the first lost to suicide, the second struck by a bus– meant that stepping into darkness felt unavoidable.

“I realised I just couldn’t write anything happy,” he shrugs. “The themes of love and death aren’t always spoken about out loud, but they’re always there. For me, they’ve never felt as close as they do on this record.”

 As the world steps back into the sun after two years of darkness, the isolation and pain of these songs should be held close as a reminder of the struggle we’ve come through, and why it’s important to embrace every day as it comes.

“Everybody dies,” Cis smiles, leaving off with characteristic bluntness. “So make the best of being alive. Stop being an aggressor in traffic. Just drive…”

Be sure to catch STAKE live including appearances at this year’s ArcTanGent Festival as well as a UK/EU run with Cave In. A full list of dates can be found below. 

LOVE, DEATH and DECAY is set for release on the 30th of September 2022 via Hassle Records. Pre-order HERE.

STAKE: Brent Vanneste – vocals/guitars / Cis Deman – guitars / Jesse Surmont – bass guitar / Joris Casier – drums