Michigan rockers GRETA VAN FLEET have confirmed that they are working on their second full-length album for a tentative late 2019 release.
Speaking to NME‘s Charlotte Gunn at the Mad Cool festival in Madrid, Spain on Saturday (July 13), guitarist Jake Kiszka stated about the musical direction of the follow-up to 2018’s “Anthem Of The Peaceful Army” (see video below): “There’s a little evolution, I suppose, with everything. We’re working on something quite different, I suppose. It’s interesting, ’cause we never know exactly what an album’s gonna look like; it can only be so premeditated. But as it sort of unfolds now, it’s an example of where we are musically right now. So it’s definitely much different than ‘Anthem Of The Peaceful Army’ would have been.”
Added bassist Sam Kiszka: “I think it’s really the next step in the evolution of what we want to do.”
Continued Jake: “Yeah, ’cause now I suppose we have a little bit more leniency on the more outlandish stuff that we wanna do.”
Said Sam: “I think as far as the entire intent goes, I think [it’s] just incorporating more sounds, more tones, more styles of music, perhaps, and kind of taking a step in the cinematic direction.”
Jake went on to say: “I suppose another question on this album as well was, like, ‘What hasn’t been done and how many rules can we break?’ ‘Cause that’s when you really start creating something unique.”
Despite the fact that GRETA VAN FLEET has managed to sell out shows all over the world, the four-piece has been criticized for channeling a sound uncannily similar to LED ZEPPELIN, with some music fans slamming singer Josh Kiszka for allegedly copy-and-pasting Robert Plant‘s vocal style.
“Anthem Of The Peaceful Army” landed at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart in July 2018 despite earning a lukewarm 53/100 score on review curation site Metacritic.
In December, GRETA VAN FLEET scored four Grammy Award nominations, one for each major rock category — “Best Rock Album”, “Best Rock Song”, “Best Rock Performance” — and a “Best New Artist” nod. They went on to win for “Best Rock Album” for their sophomore EP, “From The Fires”.
GRETA VAN FLEET was founded in 2012 by brothers Josh Kiszka, Sam Kiszka and Jake Kiszka, plus the sole non-brother member Kyle Hauck, who has since left and been replaced on the drums by Danny Wagner.