Hear High on Fire Take on Aliens With New Face-Melter ‘The Black Plot’
Matt Pike has been busy as of late touring with his revered stoner-metal trio Sleep, including playing two shows in two different cities on that smokiest of holy days, 4/20. But neither endless gigs nor endless weed have gotten in the way of Pike creating a seventh studio album with his main band, sludgy thrash outfit High on Fire. The group — which was handpicked by Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett to play his recent Fear FestEvil — recorded in Salem, Massachusetts, with producer and Converge riff-master Kurt Ballou, and will drop the thunderous LP, titled Luminiferous, on June 23rd. (It’s available for pre-order on iTunes now.)
First single “The Black Plot” — a rumbling rumination on how extraterrestrials have secretly impacted human history — leads the way. “It’s about aliens abducting people and manipulating our past, present and future. It’s about the top of the pyramid, so to speak,” Pike says. “And it’s also about alien hybrids, and how we’ve been immersed amongst this culture of E.T.s for thousands of years, and how no one has woken up to it until recently.”
Pike contends that the aliens have been with us since ancient times and constructed the pyramids of Egypt and ziggurats of Mesopotamia; their presence, he claims, has been documented in the “Epic of Gilgamesh” and other texts. “Even the Bible talks about it, the giants — the Nephilim — loving human women,” he maintains. “Who wouldn’t love human women? Dude, if I was some sort of alien or fallen angel who disagreed with God, I’d be like, ‘Dude, I’m going to fuck every girl on this planet that I can! Because they’re hot!'” he adds with a laugh.
“When conspiracy theories become conspiracy facts, it’s kind of an amazing thing, because it fucks with your brain, and it fucks with my being on this earth,” the High on Fire singer-guitarist concludes. “At the same time, man, the only weapon I have, as far as being a good human being, and sticking up for my race, is my voice. I was given a voice to say something, and I’m doing just that. I gotta say something, man! Look at the world around you and tell yourself it’s OK, because it’s really not, dude; it’s so fucked up.”