"The Emperor Of Loss" is the direct follow-up to The Shining Son. It is a powerful and visceral concept album that explores the psychological depths of emotional captivity, domestic violence, and the mourning of one's identity. Through a circular narrative, where the end meets the beginning, the album portrays the tortuous journey of a woman grappling with Stockholm Syndrome, caught in the grip of her persecutor, a figure both tyrannical and deeply internal.
Each track serves as a chapter in this descent into the self, a kind of mental odyssey where trauma, confusion, and rebellion collide with a longing for deliverance, and even rebirth.
This is a tragic and cyclical work, staging a persecutor, The Emperor, at war with no one but himself, causing collateral damage on all sides. In the end, he is the true loser of the story.
The album does not follow a classic, linear arc of liberation. It unfolds like a spiral: each attempt at emancipation is pulled back by the invisible chains of trauma. But within this spiral lies a raw truth—the struggle is real, it is spoken, it is denounced, it is lived. The music becomes a form of catharsis, a sonic manifesto for those who seek to break the silence.
APPALOOZA is a long-gone stallion speeding after a lost freedom. Formed in Brest in 2012, the trio takes its cue from the alt-heavy firepower of Alice in Chains, as well as the rock'n'roll stampede of the likes of Queens of the Stone Age or Them Crooked Vultures, propelling themselves with a creativity and sense of direction that are the essence of great bands.
