Lucky Number Music

Today, London collective HMLTD have unveiled a new video for “Days“, taken from their widely acclaimed new album The Worm, described as “a triumph of ambition” by The Sunday Times, and “One of the most well-executed concept albums of recent times” by Loud & Quiet. The video arrives ahead of two special performances at London’s ICA this week (18th & 19th May), where the band will perform The Worm in full for the very first time.

The band have also confirmed two hotly-tipped special guests for their upcoming live performances – Heartworms (18th May) and Picture Parlour (19th May) – tickets are on sale now.

Born of his “failure to accept the impermanence of things”, ‘Days’ finds frontman Henry Spychalski detailing love and loss, memory and melancholia, and time and its unravelling – as he explains: “In “Days”, the Worm that stalks the album takes on a new, particular meaning – as that kernel of doubt which, like a parasite, can burrow in and bury itself inside a relationship – growing inside its warmth until finally it overcomes it.”

The song’s accompanying video, directed by Spychalski, is in part an homage to Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée, transplanted into the world of The Worm.

Ahead of the arrival of their new album – The Worm – due this Friday, 7th April, London collective HMLTD have today shared the record’s title track, “The Worm“.

Conceptually and musically, “The Worm” is the centrepiece of the band’s new full length. It’s the clearest distillation of its two major themes: the powerlessness of individuals stuck and suffering inside systems of power that they are unable to change, and the spiritual struggle to overcome one’s inner demons.

“‘The Worm’ is by far and away the most ambitious song we’ve made to date,” tells frontman Henry Spychalski. “We recorded it with a 16-piece string orchestra in Athens and, later, a small gospel choir in London. It was inspired by Stravinsky’s ‘Rite of Spring’. For the cacophonous outro which closes the song, we asked the orchestra to play the part with the ‘sensazione de un verme’ (the sensation of a worm). The lyrics are the clearest admission that the album is a symbol of my depression and battle with it.”

The track arrives alongside a new video directed by Spychalski. Set in Wyrmlands, the imagined future in which The Worm has swallowed England and society is split between those who support it, and those who have chosen to resist.

“The video for ‘The Worm’ shows the final stand of the resistance,” notes Henry. “We shot the video in an abandoned, desecrated church in London’s East End to emphasise the spiritual nature of the song and its themes of struggle and salvation. In the video, I wanted to show man’s inner demons physically manifested as real, living, breathing entities – the Worm within man.

It was inspired by the films of the polish auteur Andrzej Zulawski, and in particular his unfinished masterpiece On The Silver Globe. The chorus of extras which make up the congregation are all fans of ours who answered a general callout on Instagram, without whom the video would not have been possible – so our eternal gratitude to them here cannot be overstated”

In coordination with the Worm Moon, London collective HMLTD have today shared “The End Is Now” and its accompanying video, the second single to be taken from their ambitious second album The Worm, due Friday 7th April.

Continuing a push in sonic experimentation, “The End Is Now” combines 70’s soul with English folk to set the scene for The Worm, evoking the apocalyptic zeitgeist of the 21st Century and a generation’s psychological terror at the threat of world-ending climate change. “‘The End Is Now’ tells of how the titular Worm was finally awoken by hydraulic fracking of the English countryside, and swallows England whole” explains frontman Henry Spychalski. “The Worm here is both a metaphor for capitalist greed, and the embodiment of a whole generation’s anxiety, dread and fear in the face of ever-looming apocalypse and world-ending natural disasters.”

Directed by Spychalski, the accompanying video for ‘The End is Now’ was visually inspired by the films of Ingmar Bergman, Andrei Tarkovsky, and Václav Marhoul’s film The Painted Bird and acts as an origin story for the album’s hero.

The new cut follows “Wyrmlands” in affirming HMLTD as one of the UK’s most ambitious and creative talents. Created over the course of two years with a cast of 47 musicians – including a gospel choir and a 16-piece string orchestra – the collective’s second full-length The Worm is less a concept album than a fully-fledged musical universe, transcending genre and medium. Set in a disorienting anachronistic version of Medieval England – as steeped in dystopian sci-fi fantasy as it is folklore and Old English mythology – it’s part political polemic, part deeply moving psychological journey.

Today, HMLTD return with the announcement of their second album, The Worm – due for release on Friday 7th April. To coincide with the news, the London collective have shared lead single “Wyrmlands” and an accompanying video directed by frontman Henry Spychalski.

Created over the course of two years with a cast of 47 musicians – including a gospel choir and a 16-piece string orchestra – The Worm is less a concept album than a fully-fledged musical universe, transcending genre and medium. Set in a disorienting anachronistic version of Medieval England – as steeped in dystopian sci-fi fantasy as it is folklore and Old English mythology – it’s part political polemic, part deeply moving psychological journey, and finds frontman Spychalski drawing on his own psycho-spiritual struggles to construct a modern parable about the impotence felt by individuals stuck inside gargantuan, labyrinthine systems of power that they are powerless to change.

In contrast to their debut album, the acclaimed 2020 release West of Eden, which explored toxic masculinity and the breakdown of Western society, The Worm is framed as a spiritual quest within a delusion. In that delusion, Spychalski’s shadow self is projected and embodied as a giant worm that swallows England, and which must be slain in order to achieve salvation. The concept came to him in a fever dream back in 2020, before being fully fleshed out with the band’s recording line-up of Achilleas Sarantaris (drums), Duc Peterman (guitar/production), Seth Evans (keys) and Nico Mohnblatt (bass).

Spychalski explains,“We’re told to believe that anxiety and depression are purely material and biological – like a parasitic worm that can be removed with the right treatment. I think that really these conditions reflect the world that surrounds us – like colonies that a far bigger Worm has made in each of us – the psychological havoc wreaked by our inescapable capitalist reality and the looming apocalypse it has created.”

Released today, first single “Wyrmlands” and its accompanying video – directed by Spychalski himself – introduces the world in which The Worm takes place: one where England has been swallowed by The Worm and renamed ‘Wyrmlands’, along the way regressing to a Medieval, feudal society.

“‘Wyrmlands’ tells the story of a guerrilla resistance movement against the Worm” he notes. “The lyrics recount their tales of subversion and subterfuge: counter-offensives, tortured confessions and haunting vignettes of the strange new land in which they find themselves.”

The video is intended to explore the liminal space between the fantasy world in which most of the album takes place (“Wyrmlands”), and the base reality which births that delusion: a violent collision of the real and the unreal; of our delusions and the traumas that create them.”

By conjuring a parable of human struggle and salvation – of a society impotent and festering inside the intestines of a giant parasite – HMLTD visualise capitalist realism and spiritual alienation as a mythological beast. And with its hopeful resolution, this utterly unique exercise in world-building might just help inspire alternative realities, or at least offer a spiritual crutch to all of us within this one.

HMLTD will also play two special live shows at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts on Thursday 18th & Friday 19th May. For tickets, head to the band’s website.

When the plague struck and the yearlong winter began, HMLTD left their home and went into the mountains. There, they enjoyed spirit and solitude, and for the yearlong winter did not weary of it. But at last, the winter thawed, and with it their hearts,—and rising one morning with the rosy dawn, they went before the sun, and said: ‘I am weary of my wisdom, like the bee that has gathered too much honey; I need hands outstretched to take it.’ And HMLTD descended the mountain. We are proud to share their first piece of new music since West of Eden. ‘Don’t Leave Me’ is born into the world.

‘Don’t Leave Me’ is just one version of the 6400 unique compositions – not trivially different, but each one its very own song – made possible by the band’s dynamic musical artwork, ‘Leaving’. The different layers which make up the composition will go up for auction in collaboration with Async, tomorrow, Thursday 29th April, 4pm UK. Layer owners have the power to change their part of the song, and decide which of the 6400 unique forms it takes. The master song will respond in real time to these inputs, existing as a permanently ever-changing song in a constant state of flux. This song, the first ever of its kind, will be hosted on the Async gallery website for everyone to listen to, as it passes through its metamorphic life. Learn more at Async.art

Plus, on 16th November 2021, HMLTD will be playing their one and only live show of 2021 at Heaven in London: ‘The Order’. The Order is not just a live performance – it is an interactive piece of performance art with audience participation and immersive theatre built into it. Henry Spychalski writes “We have always believed that the orders and systems we live within are purely imagined – on 16 November, we will create our very own imagined order inside the walls of Heaven.” What role you occupy within The Order depends on what ticket you buy for the event – the higher-tier tickets will give you a special ‘authority’ status on the night, complete with an expanded list of rights, privileges and powers within The Order, and a special one-off piece of merchandise to signal your authority.