Melbourne’s blackened rock’n’roll quartet PAGAN are humbled to release their hotly anticipated debut album Black Wash, out today. Black Wash is everything Pagan have worked towards over the last 5 calendar cycles, an album of tantalising blast beats, disco beats and 70s rock riffs unlike no other, led by hymns ‘Death Before Disco’ and ‘Silver’. To mourn its release, the familia of Pagan has released a video for latest single ‘Silver’ and announced a string of bands who will help them carry their cross and lead a procession of electrifying live shows across Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney over three weekends this August.

‘Silver’ is a story of toxic love; of two people who serve as each other’s biggest demons, of trying to salvage some sort of happiness with the person who brings out the worst in you, even though you know you also bring out the worst in them. This tragedy plays out over Pagan’s take on a straight-up pop soundtrack, with a subtle tip of the hat to the classic guitar rock of the 1970s. The video for ‘Silver’ was filmed and directed by Aidan McDonald, and serves as the first look inside the Church of the Black Wash. It captures the pure, ritualistic energy that possesses Pagan every single time they enter the same room.

Pagan’s debut album Black Wash is a collection of 11 spells bookended by curtain raiser ‘Il Malocchio Si Apre’ (‘The Evil Eye Opens’) and their deathblow ‘Il Malocchio Si Chiude’ (‘The Evil Eye Closes’) brought to life by producer Mike Deslandes, in part at Abbotsford’s The Aviary and South Melbourne’s Holes and Corners studios. Together, Nikki Brumen (vocals), Xavier Santilli (guitar), Dan Bonnici (bass) and Matt Marasco (drums), play like their lives depend on it, paying homage to their punk rock and heavy music ethics (‘The Greatest Love Songs’), drawing inspiration from the dancefloors of neon-soaked discotheques (‘Year of the Dog’) and back-alley rock and roll clubs of old (‘Silver’). Nikki bares her soul, her ferocious and haunting howls navigating swiftly between the theological world the band have created through striking imagery and lyrical symbolism, and the real world in which she has lived and survived.