KINGS OF MERCIA announce new album & launch new song

Jim Matheos is a musician with a endless flow of creativity, leading to several bands and projects he is involved in. The most famous one is for sure Fates Warning while Kings Of Mercia is a rather new addition.

The self-titled debut album was released in 2022 and the next longplayer is waiting in the starting blocks. “Battle Scars” is the title of the second record Matheos releases together with FM singer Steve Overland, bassist Joey Vera and Simon Phillips on drums. Release date is October 25th, 2024 and the will come through Metal Blade Records.

“Don’t Ask” is the lead single of “Battle Scars” and it is a powerful appetizer for more.

“Don’t Ask” is described by singer Steve Overland as an “angsty love song” with lyrics including: “You could believe in anything you wanted to believe; We were all free to be whatever we wanted to be.”

“We found our feet with this album. This is the Kings of Mercia evolving. People think you can pigeonhole rock music fans, but they just like good songs and good music,” Overland says.

“I think it was a bit easier this time around because we’ve established a good working rhythm,” states Matheos, “I’ll send Steve at least a few songs every couple of months, and I try to keep them varied. This allows him to work on whichever ones he feels strongly about.”

“What Jim sends me is the first draft of that song,” says Overland. “So once he’s heard all the melodies and the harmonies I sing, he can chop it about and make it how he thinks it should be. He always sends me three or four different versions. He’ll say, ‘What do you think? Which do you like?’ Then we work it out between us and come up with the one we’re both happy with.”

“Steve and I started working together in 2021,” says Matheos. “I was aware of FM-they came up around the same time as Fates Warning – but I’d lost touch with them and wasn’t familiar with their more recent work. When Steve was recommended to me, I checked out some of the newer releases and felt Steve was exactlywhat I was looking for.”

“It’s a different genre of music that I’m normally involved in,” says Overland, whose voice has been likened to other British greats Paul Rodgers and Glenn Hughes. “Obviously, I’d heard of Fates Warning – they’re a very big cult band in their field. Jim and I touched base, and I told him to send me one backing track. If it sounds great, then it’s a win-win. If it doesn’t, we’ll just call it a day, knock it on the head, not take it any further. That song became ‘Humankind’ from the first album. I wrote the melodies and the title and put it all together. Jim got it and he was blown away. So we made a couple more. I loved doing it. It was just such a different challenge for me.”

Tracklist: