‘Violate Consensus Reality’ engages the senses in a way that is quite rare for concept albums, it is raw and brutal, unlike the lofty concept albums of yore with their endlessly repeating motifs and needlessly complex song structures. It stands in a long tradition of activism in music, but it also deconstructs this tradition by taking its loud and admonishing tone and providing it with a thoughtful base rooted in philosophy and spirituality.

Considering their noble goal of envisioning a brighter world, PSYCHONAUT have chosen a seemingly peculiar album title, yet somehow it perfectly captures the nature of the record. It’s all found in the word violate, which is always a negative word, e.g. a violation of rights, a person getting violated, etc. It’s never positive and certainly in the light of recent events—the #metoo-movement, the Covid-pandemic, the over- turning of Roe vs. Wade by the US Supreme Court an especially powerful image. On the contrary, the word consensus is generally considered a positive notion, but on Violate Consensus Reality it is the central idea against which the band declaim.

This subversiveness is characteristic of the mindset needed to approach the music of PSYCHONAUT. Violate Consensus is not for the faint hearted, concept-wise but also music-wise as it contains some of the most gnarly riffs and technical playing on any PSYCHONAUT record to date. ‘Violate Consensus Reality’ constitutes a wild ride from the breakneck paced riffing of «A Pacifist’s Guide To Violence», through the undulating neo-classical piano passages of «Hope» to the glorious finale of «Towards the Edge». The mantric title track opens with the angelic voice of Stefanie Mannaerts (Brutus) and slowly builds up to erupt in an explosive sermon delivered by Colin H. van Eeckhout (Amenra, CHVE, Absent in Body), the appearance of both gifted musicians affirming PSYCHONAUT’s stature in the Belgian metal scene and beyond

“No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main,” so famously wrote the reverend John Donne in his Devotions. A rare moment of extroversion in a work that is other- wise marked by introspection, and a most powerful psychological analysis that still inspires today. Re- sounding through the ages, Donne’s most direct and honest recognition of human interconnectedness still resonates in the bowels of Violate Consensus Reality, creating a powerful discourse on the intersection of the individual and the collective.

With the new album, the bands has played lots of shows trough Europe including some festivals like Motocultor, Pukkelpop, Arctangent, Into The Grave, …