Jinjer have announced their fifth studio album, Duél, out February 7th via Napalm Records. The new single “Kafka” can be streamed now.
The track showcases the many facets of the Ukrainian band’s sound, opening with gnarled guitar arpeggios that are deceptively intricate and woven around a mathy drum arrangement. The song holds to this style for the first half of the four-minute runtime before Jinjer bring the metal at the drop, with Tatiana Shmayluk’s melodic vocals suddenly becoming raspy howls.
“Being an artist is sometimes beautiful but most of the time it’s brutal… as our art is dissected word for word and ripped apart note by note, we‘re expected to be on point all-the-time … and when we aren’t, we are scandalized,” Shmayluk said of “Kafka,” which is inspired by the titular Austrian-Czech novelist.
She continued: “A true artist is vulnerable but the crowd is most often plagued with vultures who pick at every single move you make. It’s a slippery slope when music means the world to us but how quickly praise turns into prosecution… We are all Kings and Queens for a day but most of the time it feels like a Kafka novel for a lifetime. It‘s exciting but surreal and absurd at the same time …”
Duél marks the band’s first studio album since 2021’s Wallflowers and was co-produced, mixed, and mastered by Jinjer’s trusty studio collaborator Max Morton. The 11-song tracklist includes previously released singles “Someone’s Daughter” and “Rogue.”
“First of all, it‘s hard to believe that we’re about to release our fifth full-length album!” enthused bassist Eugene Abdukhanov in the press release. “After all the releases we’ve made, finally having Duél in our hands and ready to be shared with the world, makes us very proud that our band still hasn’t run out of creativity and inspiration. The fact that we still challenge ourselves to release the best music we have ever made with each new release, is what keeps Jinjer moving forward. This upcoming album was the longest songwriting process we’ve ever had and it took almost two years to complete.”
Jinjer just wrapped up a North American tour, though the band still has plenty of overseas dates left in 2024 and a slot on the ShipRocked cruise that sails from Miami on January 19th.
Pre-order Duél via Napalm Records. You can stream “Kafka” and see the album art and tracklist below.
Duél Artwork:
Duél Tracklist:
01. Tantrum
02. Hedonist
03. Rogue
04. Tumbleweed
05. Green Serpent
06. Kafka
07. Dark Bile
08. Fast Draw
09. Someone’s Daughter
10. A Tongue So Sly
11. Duél