Divergent Promotions presents by arrangement with TKO You might think you know Alien Ant Farm. Think again. Almost a decade after their last album, 2014’s Always And Forever, the SoCal alt-metal four-piece-vocalist Dryden Mitchell, guitarist Terry Corso, bassist Timmy P, and drummer Mike Cosgrove-have returned with ~mAntras~. It’s a record that will not only challenge your preconceptions of the band, but will also firmly reassert their place in world. The band’s sixth full-length, it was shaped by personal change and growth, and it represents as close to a new beginning as a band first formed in 1996 can get. At the same time, it’s not a record that dismisses and disregards the past. Far from it. A record of deep contemplation, ~mAntras~ was born out of various trials and tribulations-its songs don’t just take the listener on a musical journey, but, as its title suggests, also on a personal and spiritual one. After such a long time without making new music, there’s obviously a lot for them to catch up on. As it happens, they’d actually tried to do this earlier. The band had recorded four of its songs a number of years before-including “Everything She wAnts”, a cover of the classic Wham! Track that was first released in 2020-but then things kind of stuttered because of the pandemic. “When that song first came out,” says Mitchell, “the idea was to just kind of steamroll along and keep it going, but shit happens. We had a falling out with our producer, and I was personally just drinking and not really liking where I was in my life. Not to make it sound dramatic, but I felt like I needed to try and get better, and maybe do that by myself, in a weird way. Usually, you should rely on friends to guide you through that stuff, but being in a band is a little bit like being in a marriage. I don't know what was rubbing me the wrong way, and I can't blame the band, but I just felt like I needed to step away for a second and get my act together. I felt like I was pretty useless.