Mexican Ape-Lord, "the raw and epic mountain metal band" featuring Meliah Rage founding guitarist/songwriter Anthony Nichols, The Bags vocalist/bassist Jon Hardy, drummer named Steve Fry (Crotalus, Graveheart) and lead guitarist Dan Dykes (Triphammer), have debuted the first riveting video from their upcoming album, Survival Cannibalism, due out on October 9th via Unable Records. The songs on Survival Cannibalism were inspired by a true story of the Nottingham Galley shipwreck and the cannibalism that took place on Boon Island, Maine in 1710. “I wanted to get inside the heads of these tormented guys, whose suffering drove them to do the unthinkable,” says Hardy. “It’s an grim subject, obviously, but a great one for Tony, Dan, and Steve, because they are masterful at covering the full range, musically - from utter darkness to the thrill of cheating death.”

Watch the stirring "Situation" video clip below:



Friends since high school, Nichols and Hardy found success in different branches of the Boston rock scene in the late eighties. After signing to Epic Records in 1988, Meliah Rage went on to release nine albums and built a loyal following over the course of multiple international tours. The Bags won the Boston Rock ’n’ Roll Rumble in 1989, released six albums, and had their song “Cavemen Rejoice” featured on the PlayStation 2 game Guitar Hero. Playboy described The Bags sound as “Thrilling guitar-bash riffs that pound like the sound of a herd of giant woolly mammoths going over a cliff, with just enough melody rasping though shredded vocal cords.”

“I always had Jon’s voice in the back of my head,” says Nichols. “I like his style and creative sensibilities, and had long thought he would be a great vocalist/lyricist for the way I write music.”

As for making a record during the pandemic, guitarist and background vocalist Dan Dykes points out that there were pros as well as cons. “I used the downtime to record my parts at home, which seemed convenient at first, but sometimes meant pushing through the apocalyptic negativity of the situation to get in the right head space. I think a lot of that fear, anxiety, and dread found its way into the music. I hear an urgency - a doom-like, foreboding quality that I don’t think would be there if not for the crisis. It turned out to be a good time to make a metal record!”