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When President’s name appeared on last year’s Download poster without explanation, speculation ran rife. With the release of first single In The Name Of The Father, online sleuths deduced that they shared management with Sleep Token, and sought to reveal the identity of their masked singer. When that festival appearance arrived, the hype meant the crowd was spilling out of the tent.
Just three months later, President released an EP, King Of Terrors. Now comes their first fully formed vision in debut album Blood Of Your Empire – and that vision is bleak. The man behind President started the band as an outlet to process the emotions that came after losing his Christian faith, and the subsequent questioning of all institutions that hold power – hence the President, who in the US famously rules one nation under God.
Dark Heaven is the most explicit track here on both subjects, with a chorus line of ‘I used to stare at the cross and cry out for God, but I’m not the person I was’, alongside references to tariffs, worshipping flags and religion’s influence on children. That idea of influence surfaces again on Pink Noise, where a sample explains Plato’s allegory of the cave: prisoners watch shadows on the wall cast by a fire and mistake them for reality.
President’s voice is autotuned in parts and disappointingly less rich, but bursts forth when moving from lyrics about numbness to being alive. The autotune, the mask, the building of atmosphere only to break it down… it’s easy to see why people keep comparing President to Sleep Token. But while they’re in the same modern metal djent-goes-pop category, there’s much to distinguish them.
Throughout, Blood Of Your Empire has a cold, hostile quality where riffs stab and loop, leaving only President’s voice to passionately soar. There are nods to Bring Me The Horizon and Architects on the danceable Doom Loop, but the most obvious touchpoint is Deftones. Mercy and Dionysus hit a dark, thrilling Steph Carpenter spot while Angel Wings features a blatant Chino Moreno ‘Woo!’.
Chino’s side-project, Crosses, also comes to mind for vibe and aesthetics. This Will Divide Us embraces piano and brass, while Sleepwalker is destined to get lighters waving. Hate Figure, guest starring self-described ‘prog hop’ artist and labelmate Ando San, is the most dramatic change of pace – a catchy rap song with post-hardcore screams.
Channelling the same energy as Architects’ Seeing Red, which called out fans for demanding angry/heavy music, it targets perceived persecution by the media: ‘I used to be a hate figure / Put up with your shit / Had to navigate piss bottles thrown from the pit / It’s been 21 years now / Are we in a reprise?’ If there’s a moment where President’s conceit fails and the illusion falls away, it’s here. Every fan knows who’s rumoured to be behind the mask, and a casual Google will bring newcomers up to speed.
On the whole, though, Blood Of Your Empire generates the kind of discomfort that arises when your illusion of security is shattered. Sometimes it feels like losing all executive function and bed-rotting under a weighted blanket, at other times it feels like screaming into the void and not knowing if the void will scream back. It’s a collection of songs befitting the pervasive doom of 2026, but earwormy enough to make you glad you exist.
Blood Of Your Empire is out now via Warner Bros UK / Atlantic. President are on tour in the US now, with UK dates set for November. For the full list of dates visit their official website.
