Portugal’s Gaerea have announced that they will be hosting a ‘secret screening’ to kick start their upcoming tour in North America. The event will take place on Thursday, September 28, at the original Kuma’s Corner in Chicago, IL. Head into the article below to find out more, including full tour listings.
Gaerea comments, “This is the death of Mirage and the moment we start to let go of our world just so another one can be born. This unique event will showcase everything Gaerea has ever stood for. Get ready to witness something truly special, crafted specially to each and everyone of you who wishes to join us for an evening we shall never forget.”
The event is free to attend and starts promptly at 7:30 P.M. and band will be present for a meet and greet with fans who dare to enter the vortex. Plus, fans can enter a raffle in which one lucky winner will be given a pair of tickets to see the band’s performance at Metro on September 30.
In addition, Kuma’s has collaborated with Gaerea for a signature burger, which is inspired by the Francesinha sandwich, a comforting dish that is native to the band’s hometown of Porto (PT). The Gaerea burger is modeled after Kuma’s famous Slayer burger with a Portuguese twist. The sandwich has a bed of fresh house-cut fries, texas toast, an angus beef patty, sausage, uncured ham, shredded monterrey jack cheese, and a fried egg, all smothered in a decadent Francesinha sauce.
Following the event, Gaerea will be kicking off its North American tour with Wolves in the Throne Room, Blackbraid, and Hoaxed on September 29 in St. Louis, MO, which will then conclude on October 24 in Denver, CO. Tickets are now available and can be found below along with the full itinerary!
Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge North American Tour – All ticket links here.
09/29: Red Flag – St Louis, MO
09/30: Metro – Chicago, IL
10/01: Amsterdam Bar & Hall – St. Paul, MN
10/03: El Club – Detroit, MI
10/04: Lee’s Palace – Toronto, ON
10/05: Theatre Fairmount – Montreal, QC
10/06: Big Night Live – Boston, MA
10/07: Space Ballroom – Hamden, CT
10/08: Brooklyn Monarch – Brooklyn, NY
10/10: Underground Arts – Philadelphia, PA
10/11: Baltimore Soundstage – Baltimore, MD
10/12: The Canal Club – Richmond, VA
10/13: Hangar 1819 – Greensboro, NC
10/14: The Loft – Atlanta, GA
10/15: Orpheum – Tampa, FL
10/17: Echo Lounge & Music Hall – Dallas, TX
10/18: Come And Take It Live – Austin, TX
10/20: Sister – Albuquerque, NM
10/21: Encore – Tucson, AZ
10/23: Metro Music Hall – Salt Lake City, UT
10/24: The Oriental Theater – Denver, CO
Live EU Dates:
10/28/23: Black Box – Mikkeli (FI)
01/05-06/24: Meh Suff! – Hüttikon (CH)
05/03/24: Karmoygeddon – Kopervik (NO)
More from Gaerea:
Behind black shrouds of obscurity and desolation, the men of Gaerea deliver their odes in cascading maelstroms of aggression and beauty. Emerging from the age of pandemic to whatever awaits humanity next, the Portuguese horde remains on the frontlines of the next generation of extreme metal. As the troupe’s main songwriter elaborates, “I lost two precious years of my life, years that I would rather have spent touring and growing as an artist. But they were crucial for us, these years, because not too many bands stayed relevant and productive. The pandemic gave us the time to make the best release we could. All the promo-shoots, interviews, videos, we all had time to prepare for everything. Mirage was the product of a sudden inspiration. The basic parts were written over about two weeks.”
Such a stunning admission goes to show that art is fickle, and the artist is merely a vessel through which the sweet sorcery we call music may flow. It can mute itself to frustrating silence – or it can explode into being regardless of all consideration. For this band on the rise, it is most certainly the latter. Sizzling with ambition from day one, Gaerea may present one unique face to their audience, masked and enshrouded, but the truth is they have not remained changeless. “We are not the same band who recorded Limbo,” he insists. “We are more eager to take on the world. If the pandemic taught us anything it is that nothing is certain.”
This lack of certainty plays heavily into newest creation Mirage. As its name suggests, the inability to trust what our senses are telling us could be construed as one of the album’s central themes. Rather than constrict their art to mythological references or anti-religious tropes, Gaerea instead plumb the depths of the human experiences of isolation and suffering. “The concept, the subject, of each song is everyone, you, me . . . if people were alone together in Limbo, in Mirage they are truly alone. Nobody is truly real until they are alone.”
If existential dread could be turned into sound, Gaerea have carved their own philosophical path through its stygian tunnels. It isn’t Satan, demons, death, or even suicide that is waiting for us there. “What if people finally reached their goal,” he posits, “to end their suffering, and instead of dying they find themselves in a new reality, lost in a big city they were once a part of – they don’t know if anyone else is still alive. They are alone inside their own world.” This theme of being alone in a world full of familiar scenes, unable to end things and unable to reach anyone else, might well terrify the listener more effectively than any glimpse into the imagined hellscapes of our nightmares. Being isolated in your own world is the real nightmare, and Gaerea strum the chords of this horror with nuance and a miserable grace.
Boasting a superior production that threads the needle between clarity and causticness, Gaerea unwaveringly admit their loyalty to countryman and producer Miguel Tereso of Demigod Recordings. “Miguel is fantastic,” enthuses the band’s primary composer. “He comes from a brutal death metal background. I thought if this guy can pull off a punchy, modern, but still authentic production with a slam / death metal band, I wonder what he can do with a band like Gaerea. He has a vision for a sound, and that is what I really like. He is not a black metal fan, but it’s this very external set of ears and eyes from a guy who really knows his craft, and he brings all of that to our sound.”
Tormented leads and building riffs sit atop some seriously explosive drumming, waxing and waning, on “Arson,” a tempest of moods and one of the album’s centrepieces. Emotion, at times sounding triumphant in brilliantly wrought guitar leads, is skewered by vocals that bustle with shattering despair. The dichotomy is magnificent to behold. Gaerea’s composer makes no mistake. “I want to hear the throat on the album, and if we are a vocals-driven band, I don’t want to over-process them during the recording. Striking that balance is one of the beauties for me in this record.”
In a world that increasingly elevates the shallow and the narcissistic, Gaerea pursues an artistic struggle of inward isolation, honest self-examination, and a dogged refusal to bow to the void that awaits. Thus, the persistence of their shadowed visages, draped in the masks which codify their anonymity while also creating a reliable extreme metal brand that fans can appreciate, especially in the live setting. “Gaerea are truly ourselves when we put these masks on, and we transcend into something different, and primitive,” he asserts. “It still makes total sense, and this band would not be a band anymore if we ever dropped the masks.”
As Gaerea prepares the release of Mirage, the world has resumed functioning, and as it lurches onward into its bleak future, one could stipulate that the pressure may be on to continue its rise amid the clamor of this renewal of activity. Does this challenge intimidate Gaerea? “We want to do better, but I don’t feel any pressure because we are in very good hands with the people we work with. We are building a strong team that really cares for us, stage-wise, promotional-wise, website and sales-wise. We are building a very structured confident teams that aims for the same goals we do. What I truly care about is continuing our ever-growing concept of the band GAEREA, and not becoming sterile, and I would not want people to be unaffected by our music. In the end we’re trying to express something within ourselves, and I don’t want it to be too complicated.”
Follow Gaerea:
https://gaerea.bandcamp.com/album/unsettling-whispers
https://www.facebook.com/gaerea
https://twitter.com/gaerea_official
https://youtube.com/@gaereaofficial
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1wXoI3Ajpv4WwQ3LmcrSBw
https://music.apple.com/us/artist/gaerea/1383640506