This post originally appeared on the Obelisk.net:
Good news from the camp of Allston, Massachusetts, heavy rockers Cortez. The five-piece outfit have finished work on their impending sophomore full-length, and unveiled the title as The Depths Below. They began the recording process last December with the esteemed Benny Grotto at the helm at Q Division Studios in Somerville, MA, and have gradually chipped away at the tracks — names like “Farewell to Kings” and “Orison” have been leaked — since then at both Q Division and the seemingly-compatriot Moontower Recording Studio, taking time here and there for gigs at the now-defunct TT the Bear’s Place — I’ll buy it; sign me up — and at the Grub, Sweat and Beers fest with Shatner, Hessian, Set, Gozu, Blackwolfgoat, Conclave and a host of other local heavy luminaries.
No public word on the release plan for The Depths Below — which is to say, if Cortez know when or how it’s coming out, they haven’t posted about it — but when it arrives, it will be the follow-up to 2012’s self-titled debut (review here) and their 2014 split single with Borracho (semi-review here) and their first full-length outing since they added Alasdair Swan on second guitar alongside the established four-piece of six-stringer Scott O’Dowd, vocalist Matt Harrington, bassist Jay Furlo and drummer Jeremy Hemond. Naturally one expects that shift in dynamic will show itself in the material, but we may yet be a while off from finding out exactly how. A 2016 seems fair to expect, but one never knows. Could show up earlier if the art and pressing plans are done.
More info when I see or hear it, but for now, their announcement of the record’s completion was quick and victorious:
Our new album is finished and has been mastered. We have settled on the title “The Depths Below”. It didn’t take quite as long to finish as GnR’s Chinese Democracy, and unlike that album, we’re confident that it’ll have been worth the wait.
