The Empty Page Return With New Album “Unfolding” & “I’m A White Hot Blade” Video

It’s been a long time since uncompromising Manchester, UK alt-punks The Empty Page released their debut album, Unfolding, back in 2016. It was never their intention to leave it that long, but ill health, a global pandemic and general life stuff got in the way. All of this makes it all the more triumphant that The Empty Page have today released their new album, Imploding, via the bands own Vociferous Records. To celebrate its release, The Empty Page have also released a new single, I’m A White Hot Blade (Witches Are Wicked), with an equally dramatic video that was shot by Camille Alexander at Ember Ironworks, a place where people can actually go and make a knife in the same way they would have done in decades past. 

“All the songs are personal to me on this and every record but ‘I’m A White Hot Blade’ is particularly close to my heart. I had been walking a lot in the hills of Lancashire, not far from where I grew up. It got me thinking about the real-life ‘witches’ that were massacred in this part of the world, the stories of what happened to them and other women (and some men) in other parts of the world. The unfathomable brutality towards people, particularly women, who were trying to heal and nurture. I had also been thinking more and more about women in politics and power, or the lack thereof. Thinking about how so many of the powerful men who currently run the world are running things in a way that I and many other people simply don’t approve of with war and violence and capitalism and power-hungry madness. How different it might be if there was more gender balance. I was thinking about how, ever since I was a child, witches have been cast as wicked, evil, cunning and plain bad as well as being disparaged for being old and ‘ugly’. Conversely, wizards are cast as wise, benevolent, powerful and important. Their age is to be revered and respected, cast as superior, long-bearded icons. Often when people are oppressed and beaten down, they forge stronger bonds among their fellow oppressed and become more powerful. Fire can be used to damage and burn but it can also create powerful things – like white-hot blades. The song is about the incredible power that comes out of struggle.” (singer Kel)

For Imploding the band worked with producer Morton Kong and for the first time found themselves with the luxury of not having to rush the recording process and took full advantage of the creative space, utilising the studios vintage gear and experimenting with sounds and fresh ideas and generally pushed themselves and their music further than it has ever gone before.