Photo by: Steve Hash
Official press release:
Evil Island have announced their debut album, Terraform The Afterlife, arriving August 14 via Blowed Out Records. Born from the creative firestorm that followed The Blood Brothers’ 2024 reunion tour, the record finds Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato, Mark Gajadhar and Autry Fulbright pushing their collective chemistry into bold new territory. Today, the band also share the album’s second single, “Animal,” alongside an unhinged new music video that transforms a sun-bleached desert gathering into an increasingly violent cultish nightmare. Fans can pre-order Terraform The Afterlife on vinyl HERE. Stream “Animal” HERE and watch the blood-soaked music video below.
Produced by Ross Robinson, Terraform The Afterlife also features a carefully selected cast of guest vocal performances, including Alexis Krauss of Sleigh Bells, Michael Gatto of XCOMM, Jordan Blilie of The Blood Brothers and Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, marking his first recorded vocal performance since Fugazi’s 2002 album The Argument.
Speaking on the announcement, Evil Island vocalist, Johnny Whitney shares:
“Evil Island was born out of the firestorm of creative energy that Cody, Mark and I felt when The Blood Brothers reunion tour ended in 2024. My brain was on fire, I was gripped with a kind of mania. I had so many ideas rattling around in my skull that if I didn’t make something new with my friends, the psychic damage probably would’ve manifested as some exotic form of cancer.
I knew our story wasn’t over. More importantly, I knew our particular strain of feral pop hardcore felt more necessary than ever given that the world is boiling in bullshit. So we wrote eleven songs, brought Ross Robinson into the fold, then Autry joined the band, and suddenly everything locked into place.
With Terraform The Afterlife, we let Ross completely off the leash. What was supposed to be a two-week recording session turned into a five-month descent into something far bigger than we imagined. We built a musical world that’s dazzling, violent, joyful, ugly, melodic, brutal and somehow still coherent. We put every drop of ourselves into this record. Terraform The Afterlife is the most creatively gratifying thing I’ve ever been part of, these songs will be fucked into my skull forever.”
Picciotto’s appearance carries particular significance. A longtime friend and collaborator of the band who previously worked with The Blood Brothers on their acclaimed 2006 album Young Machetes, he was drawn back into the studio after receiving a call from Cody Votolato while Evil Island were deep into recording.
Speaking on how this rare and exceptionally special collaboration came about, Guy Picciotto shares:
“Last November I got a text from Cody Votolato checking in and asking to talk on the phone. I had worked as a producer with Cody and his Blood Brothers compatriots on their last album Young Machetes and those guys had become some of the dearest people in the world to me. The experience of making that record was such a blast – both hilarious in terms of humor and hi-jinx but also hugely revitalizing to me in terms of getting to watch their musicality, their creativity and their camaraderie up close.
I had been blown away by their reunion shows the year before and had thought they were even better than ever so I was expecting Cody to maybe drop news of more shows in the offing. I certainly wasn’t expecting him to drop the bomb that he, Johnny and Mark had formed a new band with Autry and that they were already fully in deep tracking an album with Ross Robinson back in the producer saddle with them. I was even more surprised when Cody asked if I would be up for singing back-ups on one of the tracks. Given that my general attitude vis-a-vis the Blood Brothers is that I would take a bullet for any of them, I felt like I had to at least give it a shot despite not having sung on a recording since the last Fugazi album THE ARGUMENT back in 2002.”
The announcement arrives following a remarkable start for the band. Evil Island’s debut single “Tiger Baby” sold out its entire pressing of 300 hand-signed 7-inch records in less than six hours, while the band’s live lineup has expanded with the addition of Todd Weinstock, formerly of Glassjaw, on second guitar. His arrival adds another direct thread to the early-2000s post-hardcore ecosystem and further strengthens Evil Island’s live incarnation as the band prepare to bring this new material into the world for the first time.
Initially envisioned as a brief recording session, Evil Island’s time in the studio expanded into a five-month creative odyssey with Robinson behind the board. Across thirteen tracks, Terraform The Afterlife embraces contradiction at every turn, balancing melody and abrasion, beauty and ugliness, joy and destruction into a singular musical world.
Terraform The Afterlife track listing:
“Melted Heart” feat. Alexis Krauss
“Termantrixx” feat. Michael Gatto
“Animal”
“Tiger Baby”
“T-Hexx” feat. Guy Picciotto
“Evil Island Death Cult National Anthem”
“Grow Spikes”
“I Bought A Spell” feat. Jordan Blilie
“No Good”
“Moonlight Doomlight”
“Blinding Rage”
“King Death”
“Suicide By Cop”
