Bay Area Rockers BLACK MAP To Release In Droves Album In March; “Run Rabbit Run” Track Streaming

Bay Area rock outfit, Black Map, are streaming the new song, “Run Rabbit Run”, from their new album, coming out next year.

“The song is one of my favorites on the record and definitely one of the most intense,” says frontman and bass player Ben Flannagan. “It also really encompasses a lot of what the whole album is about: the damage that’s caused by just blindly following and veering from our individuality; from the elements that make each of us unique.”

The new track is available on all major streaming services and will be offered as an iTunes instant gratification track. Fans who pre-order the album today will get “Run Rabbit Run” immediately as a download.

Black Map will release In Droves on March 10th via Entertainment One (eOne) in North America and SPV overseas. The band only wrapped up production on the effort last month with Aaron Hellam at Oakland’s Hellam Sound (The Trophy Fire) and created an ambitious but no less intense sophomore set, a boundary smashing, down-tuned heavy rock slab.

Tracklisting:

“Transit I”
“Run Rabbit Run”
“Foxglove”
“Ruin”
“Heavy Waves”
“Dead Ringer”
“Octavia”
“Transit II”
“No Color”
“Indoor Kid”
“White Fence”
“Just My Luck”
“Cash For The Fears”
“Transit III”
“Coma Phase”

“Run Rabbit Run”:

After a successful run with Chevelle this year, the band will be heading back out on the road at the top of 2017 for another round. A full list of dates hitting much of the western half of the US can be seen here.

Black Map creates music driven by the pulse of their early genesis as a trio who packed itself into a rehearsal room with pure intentions, a 12-pack and a boundary-smashing lack of prohibitions or rules. Their commitment is to each other, to what feels right; to meditation on big riffs that lurch and churn, dripping with atmosphere, powering bold and evocative statements.

The band is the union of three established Northern California rock musicians, driven by a shared dedication to big riffs, big drums and powerful, straight-ahead, all enveloping rock n’ roll. Black Map consists of the versatile voice and walloping bass groove of Ben Flanagan (Trophy Fire), the wall-of-sound big riff histrionics of guitarist Mark Engles (dredg) and the unstoppable driving force and tasteful skill of drummer Chris Robyn (Far).

A few songs became a few shows and an EP which begat a debut album, …And We Explode (2014), which featured the buzzy single, “I’m Just The Driver”. The metaphorical “black map” of the band’s steadily building catalog and dedicated following led them to secure live performance spots alongside the mighty Chevelle, multi platinum rockers Bush, Circa Survive, and Highly Suspect in addition to multiple club shows as a headlining act.

Songs like “Run Rabbit Run”, “Foxglove”, “No Color” and “White Fence” are united in a lyrical exhortation toward staunch individuality in the face of soul-crushing conformity. These are songs that challenge listeners to focus on what makes them unique as people, to shake off the gloomy dystopian results of mass groupthink, to actualize and harness one’s own humanity.

As they continue forward, ever united in that original pureness of intentionality, Black Map covers bigger ground. Bursts of ambience and mellow contemplation compliment the broadly shaped melodic noise. Unafraid experimentation gives way to a strong dichotomy, to new elements, all within that original structure of Black Map’s monster riffing.

Sonic treasure hunters who study Black Map will find themselves transported to the spirit of the early 90s rock resurgence, when bands jettisoned the superficial fluff of the previous decade without wandering too far into dense pretension and delivered authentic and heavy music. Black Map combine flourishes of beauty alongside the bombast and a modern sensibility that nevertheless will not sacrifice its raw realness.

(Photo – Jen Cash/Calibree Photography)