The Austerity Program's new album Bible Songs 1 is anything but praise. Instead, as vocalist Justin Foley will tell you, the album is all about the parallels between modern suffering and Biblical suffering.
“A few years back I realized that we keep returning to the same lyrical theme: people trying to make sense of things beyond their control. Around the same time I challenged myself to read the Bible start to finish (a near three-year slog). About a third of the way through, I saw that the narrative voices in the Bible frequently synced up with the desperation in our music and this persistent lyrical subject.
“So this record – ‘Bible Songs 1’ – just battens the hatches and sails right into it: six songs about the worst parts of the Old Testament. The misanthropy and murderous zealotry are right at home as we’re push well beyond the musical boundaries of our past. King David’s proud sexual transgressions, Moses’s demand for genocide, Zedekiah watching all his sons split from navel to chin – it’s all here.”
Bible Songs 1 is streaming now and you can grab the release both on vinyl and digitally here.