Assumption have released "Paradox Of The Arrow", the title track of their third album, which 20 Buck Spin put out on 13 November.
The song came from a bad stretch. Problems around the production and release of Hadean Tides left the Italian band stuck, unsure whether there would be another record at all. "Discovering Zeno's paradox of the arrow allowed us to finally give our turmoil a lyrical voice," Giorgio Trombino said.
The paradox holds that an arrow in flight is motionless at any single instant, which is a precise description of a band moving and getting nowhere. Trombino says the clean guitar notes that open the song were chosen for that stillness, and ties them to the arrows in Mariya Popyk's cover painting, which move and do not.
Six songs, and the label describes long doom passages broken by sudden death metal acceleration, dissonance and ambience. Guitars and bass were tracked in Italy and Slovenia, the rest at Art Distillery Studios in Modena with Claudio Mulas, who also mixed and mastered it. 20 Buck Spin are a new home for them.