Behind The Artworks: INTENT - Exile (2022)

Jeremy Lambert: When I was coming up with the idea for the album art, I really wanted to display what it really feels like to be tortured (even if that only means emotionally). When I was writing the first few songs of the album, I realized we kinda had a Sepultura influence shining through. They always had a very unique sound and displayed themes about indigenous people, bloodshed, and all that other stuff. Well the first song I wrote for the record was "Victims of Conquest", which depicts what happens when history is written by the victor. I had often wondered how many historical inaccuracies were taught from the history books in schools, how many tribes or civilizations were forgotten because somebody else came in and decimated them. I remember doing a lot of research on the decline of the Mayans and Aztecs and some real crimes against humanity took place. I knew the art had to depict that perfectly. The mask that appears in the artwork was inspired by an old Italian horror movie called Black Sunday (or "La maschera del demonio" in its original country). In the film it is used a torture device and pushed into the face of a victim, as the back of the mask is loaded with long spikes. I just loved the look of it. So when I went to tell the artist about it, we decided to give it a sort of Mayan/Aztec twist. All the hands reaching out to hold the mask on the poor guy can be viewed as different things, but my original intention was that they are either conquistadors, rival tribesmen, or even betrayers. Anything that would lead to the fall of this guy's people. I could probably go on about this all day but I will leave it at that!