THE MARK OF CAIN – MAR ’13

THE MARK OF CAIN – SONGS OF THE THIRD AND FIFTH

“Six years in the making and worth every bit of the wait. A career high point”Rolling Stone

“Songs… is an outstanding return. It has everything a fan could want, from the familiarity of the band’s crushing, minimal sound to the strong songwriting”The Age / SMH

“Songs… may be The Mark of Cain’s best work to date and an Australian great waiting to be anointed”AU Review

“A testament to bands everywhere- fly the flag straight and true, or get outta town” Stack Magazine

“This album is a must”Heavy Magazine

Songs Of The Third and Fifth is The Mark Of Cain’s fifth studio LP. It lands in stores  November 2nd and to celebrate, they would like to announce their first national tour in six years.

“Call it violent soul music, call it cold fear rock. This is music to be felt in the fist, the gut and the base of the spine!” – Murray Engleheart / Remedy

TICKETS ON-SALE NOVEMBER 12th. See the tour dates for details.

Work on The Mark Of Cain’s fifth studio LP began as far back as 2006 when Adelaide brothers John and Kim Scott caught up with drummer John Stanier while he was touring through Australia with his band Battles. The desire to produce another TMOC record was strong, but the reality of geographical distance (Stanier being based in the USA) and his constant touring commitments with his other bands, coupled with John and Kim’s day jobs and family commitments made it logistically impossible.

“I write better with the entire band present rather than trying to work out material at home. In order to help progress the writing I worked with a local drummer, Ben White, “ says John (Scott).  “He and I would jam at Frank’s Custom Music in Adelaide once a week and Heart of Stone, Milosovic and Avenger came from those sessions.”

John Stanier’s other bands Battles and Tomahawk have a strong presence on the Australian live scene, which provided the trio a number of opportunities to get together and develop the rest of the songs for the record. They would spend one or two weeks jamming in Adelaide whenever he was out here, working the songs and recording the bare bones so that when Stanier left, John and Kim could continue to work the material into cohesive tracks.

In early 2008 Stanier returned to Australia with Battles for the Big Day Out, and the trio entered Adelaide’s Broadcast Studio with Evan James recording, engineering all of the beds (bass, drums, guitar) before Stanier returned to the USA.

During his 2008 Australia talking tour, long time friend and producer of their breakthrough record Ill At Ease, Henry Rollins, wrote and laid down a spoken word vocal part to the track Grey 11.

2009 and 2010 saw the breakdown of John’s (Scott) long-term relationship and subsequently two years of attempts to deal with the results of the split, while maintaining a job and trying to limit the ongoing personal turmoil which resulted in hindering the singer getting into the studio on a frequent basis to complete the record in a timely fashion. It wasn’t until May 2011 that John (Scott) and long time manager Tim Pittman joined engineer Forrester Savell (Karnivool, Cog, Birds Of Tokyo) at Melbourne’s Sing Sing Studios to start mixing of the LP, which would be completed in December 2011.

Now, in 2012, four years after they began making this album, and ten years since their last studio recording, The Mark Of Cain make a triumphant return to the Australian music scene with Songs Of The Third and Fifth.