All-star project Feelingless just recently annnounced the release of the band’s upcoming studio album, entitled “Metal Against Animal Cruelty“, which will be coming out on December 2nd via Noble Demon. Brought to life by Hugo Markaida, member of Spanish melodic death metal band Rise to Fall, Feelingless is a project to support animal rights and to give a voice to the voiceless. Featuring top notch guest appearances by the likes of Björn Strid (Soilwork), Jon Howard (Threat Signal), Christian Älvestam (Solution .45, Miseration) and Ettore Rigotti & Claudio (Disarmonia Mundi) – just to name a few – “Metal Against Animal Cruelty” offers eleven tracks and the proceeds raised from this release will be donated to an international animal welfare organization and to local animal shelters in Spain.
ollowing the release of the first single and album opener “Feelingless” (feat. Björn “Speed” Strid), the second single “Nostalgia” has been released today, featuring stellar guest appearances from Jake E (Cyhra) & Rachel Aspe of Cage Fight.
Hugo Markaida about the song: “This track is sung by Jake E of Cyhra and ex-Amaranthe and Rachel ex ETHS and currently in Cage Fight. It’s a track I composed in the middle of confinement, which is partly the fault of Ola Englund (Youtuber and guitarist in The Haunted) who every week would post a drum kit for musicians to put to music and riff on his bases. It pushed me to make different music than what I usually create. The lyrics of this track talk about covid and confinement. It’s a track with a brutal mix as Rachel screams and Jake provides the melodic vocals, accompanied by some brutal guitar solos from Pedro with a keyboard solo from Diego. Lawrence’s drumming takes this track to another level from what I had written.“
Feelingless itself was born in the middle of the pandemic, although the idea had been in the germ for a long time, as Hugo Markaida explains: “My taste for this kind of projects began when I discovered, a few years before picking up the guitar, ‘The metal opera Pt. 1’ by Avantasia in a local music store.
Hugo Markaida continuous: An album that brought together many of my favorite heavy and power metal singers that, wrapped in a medieval fantasy concept, was for a teenager like me an object of devotion. If we jump in time to the moment when I was composing the material that would make up the fifth album of my band Rise To Fall, just moments before the pandemic, many of the ideas and compositions that I liked the most did not specifically fit to the band and, as in every album, I had to put them aside. Still thinking about that Avantasia album that impacted me when I was a teenager, to bring out a project of that magnitude myself with my favorite singers must have had a sense of importance for the person I am today. Something special that would draw attention to one of the causes I am most committed to. And, incidentally, to support it with the profits resulting from the project.
Both my partner and I are animal lovers, and we live surrounded by rescued animals. That is why it seemed important to me that, at a time when the whole of humanity was suffering from a global crisis and its consequences, we could not forget the most vulnerable. Thus, I began to outline the concept of the album around the exploitation and mistreatment of animals. I was willing to work with the best and most favorite of my artists, so I started composing the songs thinking beforehand about who was going to interpret them. I told the participating artists all about the project and its charitable nature, with no profit for the artists involved in favor of associations that help animals in need. It was touching to see how my idols sympathized with the cause and joined the project selflessly.”
The result is “Metal Against Animal Cruelty“, a diverse metal album with twenty magnificent singers and musicians supporting the good cause on eleven tracks! The album was produced, recorded and mastered at Chromaticity Studios by Pedro J Monge. Music and lyrics by “Hugo Markaida” (Except Anxiety Lyrics and music by Iñigo Lopez and music in “Fear & Guilt” by Iñigo & Hugo and Lyrics by Hugo).
“Metal Against Animal Cruelty” will be coming out on December 2nd
CD and T-shirts from the all-star project “Feelingless“:
CD Digipak
T-Shirt (“Fear”)
T-Shirt (“Bird”)
More information about the all-star project: Feelingless
More information about the label: Noble Demon
