Through Zero, out May 29 on Blues Funeral Recordings, arrives with a blistering lead single — and a guitarist with some things to get off his chest.

Nick DiSalvo is not interested in playing the game. The Elder guitarist and primary songwriter put it plainly when talking about the band's upcoming album Through Zero: "Being a creative person in this day and age is an exercise in self-exploitation, fighting for visibility in a living hell of content creation and paid advertising just to keep your head above water."

It's the kind of thing musicians think but rarely say out loud. DiSalvo said it, then made a record about it anyway.

Through Zero drops May 29 via Blues Funeral Recordings — the label that's been putting out Elder's records since 2017 — and the first single, "Capture/Release," is already out and doing exactly what Elder singles do: it starts somewhere and ends somewhere entirely different, and the trip between those two points is the whole point.

Elder has never been a band that chased trends. They came up playing sprawling psychedelic doom in Boston, relocated to Germany, and kept quietly building one of the most devoted audiences in heavy music without much help from algorithms or advertising budgets. Through Zero feels like a direct response to that reality — music made in spite of the system, not for it.

The album lands just ahead of a summer that will see Elder on some of the biggest stages in European festival culture: Download, Hellfest, Graspop. And in June, they head out on a European tour with Blood Incantation — a pairing that makes a certain kind of sense, two bands that think in long arcs, that trust their audiences to follow them wherever a song needs to go.

Through Zero is out May 29 on Blues Funeral Recordings. Stream "Capture/Release" now.