Germ Releasing New Album "Escape"

Australian blackened shoegaze artist Gern (aka multi-instrumentalist Tim Yatras) will release new album "Escape" on April 29th via Prophecy Productions. The fourth release from Germ is touted as "the darkest yet" and builds on the self-described "experimental depressive black music" found on 2012's "Wish" full-length and "Loss" EP.

A sampling of what "Escape" holds in store can be heard now as the new Germ track "I'll Give Myself to the Wind" has been posted online.

"I can honestly say this has been the hardest album to ever complete for me, and it's also the darkest ('I'll Give Myself to the Wind' can be considered the pop song of the album for reference)," says Yatras, formerly of Woods Of Desolation, Austere, Naxul, etc. "At the end of the day, it stands as a moment in time in my life, and I truly believe it contains the strongest songwriting of any Germ album thus far."

Decisively autobiographical, "Escape" tackles a feeling of both internal and external imprisonment which strongly influenced Yatras during songwriting. On the one hand, there is a mental illness that haunted him for years, suggesting he was trapped within his own mind.

Today, he looks back thoughtfully on one of the gloomiest periods in his life: "At times it seemed there is no escape from it." On the other hand, Yatras lives in a city and society he considers to be squalid, cold and alienated. "I don't feel a connection to this society and urban life, it doesn't fit in at all with my ideals," he jadedly admits. This fuels his wish to "Escape."

1. I
2. Escape
3. I'll Give Myself to the Wind
4. Under Crimson Skies
5. V
6. The Old Dead Tree
7. With the Death of a Blossoming Flower
8. Closer