California metal band Silent Planet have released their new album SUPERBLOOM, out now via Solid State Records. The release date of November 3 is also significant for the band as it arrives on the anniversary of their horrific van accident.
“A SUPERBLOOM is this strange moment where brilliant fauna spring forth unexpectedly and bring forth such an array of colours, it almost feels alien in origin,” singer Garrett Russell notes. “It only lasts for a couple of weeks before it’s gone. While we were recording, the SUPERBLOOM was happening. For me, the record is getting in touch with the other side and watching the strange and paranormal emerge from the mundane and profane, hence the title.”
Today, the band have also released a brand new music video for Offworlder, watch the video below
Silent Planet has consistently transfixed a diehard fanbase. The group dropped a string of acclaimed albums, including The Night God Slept (2014), Everything Was Sound (2016), When The End Began (2018), and Iridescent (2021). Album standout Trilogy generated 5.3 million Spotify streams to sit alongside their genre-bending triumph Panic Room from the 2016 release, currently at 5 million. The guys notably took home Best Underground Band at the 2017 Alternative Press Music Awards and toured with the likes of Motionless In White, August Burns Red, Beartooth, and The Contortionist.
Over the course of two years, they recorded what would become SUPERBLOOM in Woodland Hills, CA alongside longtime producer and frequent collaborator Daniel Braunstein. A jarring turn of events split the process into two seasons. Trekking through a Wyoming snowstorm in November 2022, Silent Planet survived a vehicle accident. The van flipped over, leaving the group laying in the wreckage of a bitter Wyoming snowstorm as Garrett was hospitalized with a fractured back and head wound requiring stitches.
“The majority of us were awake when we felt the van start to slide,” he says. “We had some time to come to grips with the fact we were about to go down and have a close brush with death. Afterwards, we talked about what to do with the band. We went back into the record with an increased willingness to take risks. It bolstered our confidence to try new things. When the accident happened, it did something to my head, and it fed into the album.”
Along the way, they settled on a conceptual framework, expanding the scope of their vision like never before. “I grew up in Northern California,” he continues. “There’s a strip of the state known as Humboldt County, but it’s called the ‘Lost Cove.’ It’s a hotbed for strange and paranormal events like UFO and Big Foot sightings. There’s so much we haven’t uncovered. It’s possible our reality as we know it is not complete. We started telling the tale of a 17-year-old who went missing. It’s based on a true story with many details changed. Art dictates reality, and reality dictates art. Making this record was a very strange and mystical process. It’s the most magical and inspired moment of our career so far.”