New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Multi-million selling rock titans FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH have scored a top five album twice this year-and, even more notably, they've achieved this distinction within a four-month period.
The second installment of their masterwork titled THE WRONG SIDE OF HEAVEN AND THE RIGHTEOUS SIDE OF HELL - VOLUME 2 -released November 19 th via Prospect Park in North
America and on Eleven
Seven in all other territories-has entered the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart at #2. It follows the massive global success of VOLUME 1 this past July - which debuted at #2 in the U.S . on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart (selling 113,000 albums in its first week), #3 in Canada, #4 on Germany 's mainstream charts, #12 in Australia and #21 in the UK.
"Battle Born," the first single off VOLUME 2 , cracked the Top Five at Active Rock . It is now #2 and steadily climbing. It originally premiered at USA Today (10/1). Check out the official video for "
Battle Born" here:
Early critical praise has greeted the album's release. In USA Today 's album review (11/19), Brian Mansfield noted, "5FDP's second release in five months shows the metal band at the top of its game. Offering more than blind rage, though there's certainly plenty, the songs live in the tension implied by the album's title - aware of the implications of lashing out, ready to accept the consequences."
5FDP -known for their uncompromising musical intensity and razor-sharp lyrics-are currently on an extensive European arena tour with
Avenged Sevenfold through early December and have just announced they'll be performing at the Bandit Rock Awards in Stockholm, Sweden on March 8, 2014 to kick off their own headlining European tour next
Spring . For all tour dates and tickets, visit: www.fivefingerdeathpunch.com/tour .
FIVE FINGER DEATH PUNCH 's ZOLTAN BATHORY (guitar), JEREMY SPENCER (drums) and JASON HOOK (guitar) discuss the making of VOLUME 2 in their in-depth Q&A here: https://tinyurl.com/mtt3tw4. An excerpt from the Q&A is below. **Please feel free to publish this interview in its entirety or portions of it **
Q: What are the biggest differences between The Wrong Side Of
Heaven And The Righteous Side Of Hell, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 ?
Zoltan Bathory: When we were separating the songs into two records, we had a certain criteria. We wanted to make sure that we separated all 26 songs into two batches where fans almost couldn't have a preference between them. That was the goal. Vol. 2 may be a shade darker and heavier, but just a shade. There are no drastic differences because it's the same time capsule, recorded in the same time. We had a creative flow, and we ended up with a lot of songs that we thought were great and we wanted to release them all.
Jeremy Spencer: Basically, we tried to space out the records evenly and base it on a feeling. We wanted to make them well-rounded and take the listener on a journey rather than put ten songs that are identical on one and ten that are identical on the other. We tried to space it out evenly and let it have a good flow. That's what we wanted to accomplish with that. We started compiling lists. One guy would start, and we'd go, "Oh, that's pretty good. Maybe I would switch that song to the other album!" so on and so forth. I think the sequencing is cool. There are always times where you think about it later like, "Perhaps we should've done this." You have to accept an ending point and turn it in eventually though [Laughs].