ALL THAT REMAINS has released the official lyric video for a new song “Forever Cold”. The track marks the fourth new single from the Massachusetts-based metal outfit, following the arrival of “Divine” in May, “Let You Go” in June and “No Tomorrow” in August.
In a recent interview with Radioactive MikeZ, host of the 96.7 KCAL-FM program “Wired In The Empire”, ALL THAT REMAINS singer Philip Labonte spoke about the band’s plans to release a new studio album. He said: “We’ve got some music out, and there’s a full-length record coming eventually. And I say eventually, just because I don’t wanna give anybody any kind of heads up about when it will come out. ‘Cause we’re not gonna tell anyone. When it comes out, it’s just gonna show up. So, we’re not gonna do the big pre-order, blah, blah, blah. It’s gonna be, ‘Hey, go to Spotify or go to iTunes and listen right now.’ But there’s a full-length coming. And it’ll be well worth the wait. And I hope that ALL THE REMAINS fans that have gotten a taste of the new stuff with [recently released singles] ‘Divine’ and ‘Let You Go’, hopefully they’re as excited about more new music as we are.”
Asked who produced ALL THAT REMAINS‘s upcoming album, Phil said: “The record is produced by Josh Wilbur. Josh is well known for his work with LAMB OF GOD. He’s worked with MEGADETH. He’s worked with TRIVIUM. I think he worked with KORN. He’s done all sorts of metal records. He did ‘The Order Of Things’, which is our record that came out in 2015. And Josh and I work tremendously well together. I feel extremely comfortable with his opinions and when we’re writing, we’ll get together and we’ll write the lyrics and stuff together. And his opinion is something that I put a lot of value in it. And I really think that he knows his stuff when it comes to getting not only the sounds that ALL THAT REMAINS looks for, but also helping me to tell the story that I’m trying to tell. A lot of times when we’re writing, he’ll just be like, ‘Well, what’s this about?’ And he’ll ask me to tell him the story behind the song. And he’ll just start typing as I’m telling it. And he’ll be, like, ‘All right, cool. I think we got the first verse here.’ And then we’ll go ahead and he’ll pick lines or words, things that I said, and he’ll put them together in a way that looks cool. And then we’ll go ahead and we’ll adjust it a little bit. I’ll change this line or move that around. And he’s really, really great at getting the real spirit of what I’m trying to say out of me. And I feel real comfortable telling him really personal things because of that. So, like I said, he did ‘The Order Of Things’, but he also did ‘Victims Of The New Disease’, which came out in 2018, the last record we did with [late ALL THAT REMAINS guitarist] Oli [Herbert]. So, yeah, he’s a great friend, a great producer and I couldn’t be happier to work with him again. He’s wonderful.”
“Divine” marked ALL THAT REMAINS‘ first original new material since the passing of Herbert. “Divine” also ushered in a period of rebirth for ALL THAT REMAINS, which is, for the first in its career, 100 percent independent and will be releasing future material on its own label — All That Remains Records.
When “Divine” was first made available, Labonte said in a statement: “It’s been a long time since ALL THAT REMAINS released new music. A lot has changed…in both the band, ALL THAT REMAINS, and in the world around us. When we lost Oli in 2018 it was hard to envision a path forward, six years later and I am proud to share ‘Divine’ with you. ALL THAT REMAINS has new life, and that is thanks to the fans for their years of support. We would not be here without them.”
Nine months ago, Labonte spoke about the progress of the recording sessions for follow-up to 2018’s “Victim Of The New Disease” album during an interview with Rock Feed. He said at the time: “Right now I’m sitting in one of the dressing rooms at Henson [Recording Studios] in Los Angeles. It’s a historiful place [being the former headquarters for A&M Records and the location of A&M Recording Studios]. I mean, Charlie Chaplin‘s lot is here. Studio A, they did ‘We Are The World’ in. They mixed [METALLICA‘s] Black Record here. They mixed [Dr. Dre‘s] ‘The Chronic’ here. So I’m in this awesome place with all this history.
“This is our second trip here doing drums,” he continued. “We did four songs the first trip and that was in June [of 2023]. And now we’re doing four more, and then we’ve got another session booked in March to finish up the drums. And that should be the last of actual tracking. Everything should be done. We might have some odds and ends, like maybe some solo stuff and noodley stuff. But we should be done tracking by the middle of March.”
Regarding why it has taken six years for ALL THAT REMAINS to complete a new album, Phil said: “It has been a long time coming because — well, I mean a million reasons: because of COVID, because we had some legal actions with our label. We’re no longer on a label. We’re self-releasing it. So we’re self-financing. We’re gonna own it, which is a huge milestone. We had a great agreement with our label. We were supposed to have another record, but they let us go and they let us venture out on our own, which was awesome. I’ve got tons of love for Fearless and Concord Music Group and stuff, ’cause they let us do our thing. So that’s awesome. And we’re gonna get it out as soon as we can. We don’t want to rush it.”
Labonte added: “We started the sessions [for the new album] — really, the first time that I got together with Josh Wilbur, who’s producing it. Josh Wilbur, you guys know him from TRIVIUM, from LAMB OF GOD, from a ton of [other bands]. He’s worked with us [before]. He did [2015’s] ‘The Order Of Things’, he produced that one, he mixed ‘Victim Of The New Disease’, so we’ve got a lot of history with him. But he’s here [in Los Angeles], and we started with him — I think it was 2021, is actually when we started with him. He came out the first time and started working on some riffs and some ideas. And then we got our first like real song together in February of last year, where I got with Josh and wrote lyrics for a song. It was actually a song that Jason [Richardson, ALL THAT REMAINS guitarist] wrote the whole thing and kind of gave it to us.”
Speaking about the addition of Richardson, who replaced late ALL THAT REMAINS guitarist Oli Herbert six years ago, Phil said: “He’s super creative, so it’s a ton of fun. And this being his debut with us, we wanted it to be right. Not only is it the first record that we’ve put out without Oli Herbert, which took us a long time to kind of get used to the idea and figure out what that means and what it looks like and all kinds of things that had to happen since Oli passed away. But this being the first record that comes out with Jason, we want it to be right. There’s not gonna be any half-assed [songs] on this at all. There’s not any deep cuts — nothing at all. Right now we’re eight songs in and there’s zero deep cuts. Every single song that we’ve got, if someone else was, like, ‘Oh, let’s put this one out as the first single,’ it’d be fine. That would work as a first single. And that’s a big, big deal. Usually you’ll hear three or four songs or five and you’re, like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got some killer songs on this record. We’ve got six great songs.’ And there’s 10 or 11 songs on the record and you’re, like, ‘Yeah, these other ones are cool, but we didn’t have the time to do with them what we wanted. They didn’t quite come out the way we want, and the record label wants to have this many songs on the record, so we don’t have time to…’ blah, blah, blah. ‘We’ve got a deadline.’ So you end up making compromises, and because we’re doing it ourselves, putting it out ourselves and we’ve got a career and we’re super fortunate that people still listen to our music and we’ve still got people out there that support us, so we can take the time to deliver the record that the fans deserve.”
In July 2023, longtime ALL THAT REMAINS drummer Jason Costa announced his departure from the group, citing “deeply personal” reasons that “have nothing to do with any drama or anything within the band.”
Jason was the featured drummer on the last six ALL THAT REMAINS albums: “Overcome” (2008),“For We Are Many” (2010),”A War You Cannot Win” (2012),“The Order Of Things” (2015),“Madness” (2017) and “Victim Of The New Disease” (2018). He is notable for being one of the few heavy metal drummers to play solely with the “traditional grip.”
Back in March 2022, Costa left ALL THAT REMAINS‘ U.S. tour in order to “deal with some personal matters.” He was temporarily replaced by Anthony Barone, who had previously played with BENEATH THE MASSACRE and SHADOW OF INTENT.
Earlier last year, ALL THAT REMAINS‘s breakthrough album “The Fall Of Ideals”, was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) for sales in excess of 500,000 copies in the United States.
In 2022, ALL THAT REMAINS embarked on “The Fall Of Ideals” 15th-anniversary tour.
“The Fall Of Ideals” was reissued in November 2021. The best-selling title features such fan favorites as “This Calling”, “Six” and “The Air That I Breathe”.
Oli was found dead on October 16, 2018 at the edge of the pond on his Stafford Springs, Connecticut property. He was reported missing by his wife about 3 p.m., and his body was found by police face down at the edge of the pond where the water was only a few inches deep. The medical examiner’s office conducted an autopsy showing that Oli had three prescription drugs in his system — the antipsychotic olanzapine, the antidepressant citalopram, and Ambien. It also said: “Mr. Herbert‘s past medical history is reportedly significant for marijuana use.”
ALL THAT REMAINS and MUDVAYNE supported MEGADETH on a 33-city, nationwide tour, “Destroy All Enemies”, this past summer. Produced by Live Nation, the trek kicked off in Rogers, Arkansas on August 2 and ran throughout the month before wrapping in Nashville, Tennessee on September 28.
