Ghost Of The Machine’s second album will “scratch …

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UK prog rockers Ghost Of The Machine have announced that they will release their secind album, Empires Must Fall, through progrock.com’s Essentials label on March 7..

And the album, the follow-up top the band’s acclaimed 2022 debut Scissorgames, explores “denser and darker arrangements that”—singer Charlie Bramald promises—will “scratch that ‘prog’ itch while striking a careful balance between shorter, more accessible songs and those epic-length pieces that we’re known for.”

The album represents a continuation of the popular Scissors suite that opens and closes the band’s debut album.

“Our first record concluded with the tyrannical Puppet King being vanquished by his final victim… she slew him with a pair of scissors,” Bramald continues. “So, we wondered what the consequences of that violent but liberating final act would be. We started with a simple question which has only complex answers: what is true justice? Is the Puppet King’s slayer—the newly crowned Empress of the Light—succeeding at being a benevolent ruler? Can she right all the wrongs that she herself had suffered? And what will it take to finally break the cycle of violence and coercion?”

Empires Must Fall has again been produced by Bob Cooper and mastered by Grant Berry with striking cover art courtesy of Claudia Caranfa, which you can see below, along with the new tracklisting.

The album will be preceded by a single, The One, which will be released on January 1. Pre-orders for the album will also open on January 1.

(Image credit: Essentials)

Ghost Of The Machine: Empires Must Fall
1. Keepers Of The Light (8:35)
2. The Days That Never Were (5:59)
3. Panopticon (11:44)
4. Fall Through Time (12:00)
5. The One (4:43)
6. After The War (14:32)