The Elysian Grandeval Galèriarch (abbreviated as The EGG) is the second studio album by the English deathcore band Infant Annihilator. It was self-released 29 July 2016. The album is Infant Annihilator's first album to feature vocalist Dickie Allen, ending the hiatus in musical activity after former vocalist Dan Watson's departure from the band in 2013.
The album is Infant Annihilator's first album to chart, making it onto several Billboard charts, including the Top Heatseekers, Independent Albums, Top Album Sales, Top Rock Albums, and Top Hard Rock Albums charts.
Background
History
In late 2013, Infant Annihilator's first vocalist Dan Watson resigned from the band. They were in the process of writing their second album and had almost finished writing the nearly 18-minute song "Behold the Kingdom of the Wretched Undying", but after Watson's departure, writing for a new album came to a halt. A year later, in late 2014—while he was playing for fellow UK band Desolated during their first US tour—drummer Aaron Kitcher met US vocalist Dickie Allen in person for the first time. The tour line-up included the band Traitors, who had brought Allen—a friend of the band—along with them on the tour. Hearing Allen's vocals in person convinced Kitcher that he was a good fit for Infant Annihilator, prompting them to recruit him as their new vocalist.
With a new vocalist, Infant Annihilator resumed writing for their second album, teasing on social media that they were still active. They eventually revealed that they had acquired a new vocalist and were working on a new album. They also released a lyric video and a guitar play-through video for "Soil the Stillborn", vocal recording session updates, and the music video for "Motherless Miscarriage" on their YouTube channel to promote the album.
Recording
The process of writing and recording for The Elysian Grandeval Galèriarch was different than it had been for their previous album The Palpable Leprosy of Pollution. Previously, Kitcher and guitarist Eddie Pickard had communicated with Watson exclusively via the internet, utilizing the typical internet band practice of individual members being separated by distance when recording and exchanging ideas and files via the internet. For the previous album, the instrumentals were written and recorded by Kitcher and Pickard in England and the lyrics and vocals were written and recorded by Watson in the US, with the three of them never meeting in person.
In contrast, for the recording of The Elysian Grandeval Galèriarch, Kitcher and Pickard travelled to Kirkbride Recordings in Florida and stayed there for a month to record Allen's vocals, happy to be able to give direct input and ideas while recording (which they were unable to do with the previous album due to only communicating and exchanging files with Watson online). Allen wrote half of the lyrics, with Kitcher and Pickard tweaking them to fit the album's theme. Dillon Becker—former bassist of Traitors and current vocalist of AnimalFarm—also contributed to a large portion of the lyric-writing. Once the lyrics were finalized, the vocal recording process took two weeks to complete.
Album leak and release
The album was leaked approximately five days prior to its official release date, prompting Infant Annihilator to choose to upload the official album stream to YouTube four days early. The Elysian Grandeval Galèriarch was officially released 29 July 2016 and was their first album to chart, making it onto several Billboard charts, including the Top Heatseekers, Independent Albums, Top Album Sales, Top Rock Albums, and Top Hard Rock Albums charts.
Music and lyrics
Lyrical themes and etymology
When asked of the origin and meaning of the album's title, drummer Aaron Kitcher said "To be perfectly honest, we just really wanted an album to have the abbreviation 'The EGG' haha. It took a good while to find a set of words that not only had that abbreviation, but also sounded good and made sense with the concept of the album. "Elysian" – celestial/divine; "Grandeval" – ancient ... "Galèriarch" ... a fusion of the word "galère" which means a group of undesirable people and the suffix "-arch" which changes the meaning to the leader of a group of undesirable people. So we have the celestial/divine ancient ruler of a group of undesirables. In this case the undesirables are a religious cult."
