Rhiis D. Lopez, frontman for LA-based extreme prog metallers ANA KEFR, is featured in an interview with MetalPerspective.com discussing the band's new album, The Burial Tree. An excerpt is available below:

Q: What was your general approach towards the new album? I think that you have produced a "chaotic" and frenzied album that - paradoxically - is addressed to controlled and thinking persons.

Lopez: "I never thought of it this way, but you have pointed out something really cool here! The album really began being written when our former lead guitarist quit and we kicked our our former drummer. We'd had 12-13 songs written at that point, what we thought was the second album. When the band got stripped back to just Kyle (Coughran / guitars) and I, I think it did wonders for our creativity, it was like all the limitations were just thrown out the window. We began writing, and song after song just kept pouring out, the songs you hear on the album. We knew we didn't want something with a lot of format, we'd grown tired of predictable, formatted music. We wanted to make something that was more classical-influenced, with constant change and variation, lots of peaks and valleys. The music came first, the lyrics came absolutely last, and we wanted to write an album that could stand alone if you took the vocals out. The music needed to be interesting enough, with constant change and progression, to keep the attention of the listener. Take the vocals out of a traditional verse-chorus-verse formatted song and it feels ridiculously repetitive. We wanted to break the 'rules' of song-writing and basically do it our own way. I knew from the beginning that it would probably turn some people off, some people need the simplicity and predictability. But this music is really intended for people who a) enjoy original music, b) want something that doesn't just fit into the box of some stereotype or label, c) enjoy art that is outside of the box and d) have no use for simplicity. The lyrics to 'Bathos And The Iconoclast' actually touch upon this."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

The Burial Tree will be released on May 3rd. It was produced and mixed by Ana Kefr and David Franklin, engineered by David Franklin. The cover art ("The Watcher") was created by Dutch artist Bianca Van Der Werf. Check it out below:

The official tracklisting:

'Ash-Shahid'

'Emago'

'Monody'

'In The House Of Distorted Mirrors'

'Thaumatrope'

'Bathos And The Iconoclast'

'The Zephirus Circus'

'Jeremiad'

'Apoptosis'

'Parasites'

'Paedophilanthrope'

'Fragment'

'The Blackening'

'The Collector'

Check out the band's new website at this location.