Caligula’s Horse, a band at the forefront of Australia’s progressive rock scene, have announced the release of their forthcoming fourth studio album, In Contact, for release on the 15th September 2017 via Inside Out Music.

As with the band’s acclaimed album Bloom before it, In Contact sees vocalist Jim Grey and lead guitarist Sam Vallen collaborating closely on the music and lyrics. Vallen comments: “In our creative process every idea is scrutinized, deconstructed, and rebuilt in a way that one of us, alone, could never achieve. We’re one another’s harshest critic, but fortunately we’ve done this for long enough now that our inspiration draws us in a similar direction – we can finish each other’s musical sentences, so to speak. And we’re lucky that’s the case, since In Contact proved to be a much more ambitious undertaking than anything we’d conceived of in the past.”

Vocalist Grey adds: “In Contact has been an enormous proposition – the stories told in this album feel deeply personal, and we’ve never been more excited to share a new work with the world. The sounds on this album are dark and adventurous – but without losing the bittersweet and joyful sounds we developed in writing Bloom.”

As with the band’s second album The Tide, the Thief & River’s End, the band decided to hang a concept around the entire record, taking it in a direction that would end up being the opposite of its predecessor. “We decided to create a concept album, but one that came from a more personal place: one that would facilitate our creative needs wherever the journey took us” Vallen continues. “The broader concept is based around the nature of art – of what it is that sparks creativity and inspiration, a celebration of what connects us as human beings, the shared space across our many differences.”

Taking in four separate chapters, each one is dedicated to an individual and their own personal journey and how they express themselves through art. “Each of these artists are reaching for something more in their lives, and while disconnected entirely from one another, they are united by that reach: for a better life, but also for something intangible.”

Written between late 2016 and May 2017, the album went through a rapid production/mixing/mastering process encompassing five weeks between May and June. The music felt fresh and the ideas were captured at the peak of their vitality. The music on In Contact stretched all of the bands abilities, from the frantic speed and complexity of Will’s Song (Let the Colours Run) to the immense scope and variety of the 16-minute album closer, Graves. This is Caligula’s Horse at their most ambitious and progressive.

In Contact Track Listing:

Dream the Dead
Will’s Song (Let the Colours Run)
The Hands are the Hardest
Love Conquers All
Songs for No One
Capulet
Fill My Heart
Inertia and the Weapon of the Wall
The Cannon’s Mouth
Graves

Prior to the new album’s release, the band are set to return to Europe in June 2017 for a string of live dates including support slots with Opeth, Anathema & Pain of Salvation, UK headline shows and festival appearances at Midsummer Prog Festival (Valkenburg, Netherlands) and the Be Prog! My Friend Festival (Barcelona, Spain). To coincide with that, InsideOutMusic will reissue the band’s first two albums Moments From Ephemeral City & The Tide, the Thief & River’s End on the 16th June 2017 as CD & digital download.