Listening to music is an experience full of potential and juxtaposition. On the one hand, listening to music alone is an intimate, wholly subjective experience. You can close your eyes, put on a pair of headphones, and lose yourself in the world of music, as if it is a singular gateway to another dimension. On the other hand, listening to music communally can result in unforgettable shared experiences. Music is a form of communication that is universal; a language that everyone speaks, yet no one entirely understands.
Glorybots’ new album, Mad End, dropping April 18th, 2025, aims to tap into this dichotomy directly, and deliver a bold new project that can encapsulate and transport listeners, no matter what setting they’re hearing it in.
Glorybots Reaches a Mad End
Led by Jalal Andre, Glorybots has long been a musical project full of passion and ambition. In the past, Glorybots’ albums have received rave reviews and been featured in numerous Top 10 lists, but no single project has proven to be as radically audacious as Mad End is shaping up to be. As Jalal says, “To make this album, I chose to let go of preconceptions of what was acceptable. I nudged my songwriting into uncomfortable territory, worked mostly in secrecy, invited both unconventional and standard chords and sounds, and tried to remain out of the way throughout the process. To accomplish this, I played every instrument on every track with rare exception (except drums).”
As a result of this unconventional creative process, Glorybots’ Mad End became a captivating exploration of numerous genres, including alternative rock, post-punk, and synth wave, but it sounds like nothing I’ve ever done. While the album contains vast and varied influences, it doesn’t stay in any one place for too long. The music is routinely unpredictable, sonically dense, and imbued with lush, punchy soundscapes, creating a highly immersive listening experience.
Photo Credit: Glorybots
Challenges
Jalal says that one of the biggest challenges Glorybots projects faced in the past was actually him. “I used to suffocate my music by trying to steer it in a specific direction; typically, this was limited by the direction of something previously known defined by another artist.”
In doing so, he found he was able to channel those influences more succinctly, but feared he was doing so at the cost of originality. Mad End marks the end of this cycle of thinking, as the album is anything but safe. He now just tries to stay out of the way and let the music flow in whatever direction it takes.
Achievements and Accolades
- The Ark of Music’s top 10 albums of 2018
- 2019 West Coast tour
- Opened for Dandy Warhols with the previous band Echo Texture
Lessons Learned
Glorybots’ Mad End is a project whose trajectory was governed by an integral David Bowie quote: “If you’re making music that doesn’t make you slightly uncomfortable, then you’re probably not creatively where you ought to be.”
Looking to the Future
Moving forward, Glorybots aspire to perform at a few large-scale festivals and tour more extensively in the coming years. After all, Mad End is a project that has been crafted with the individual listening experience and the communal one in mind, so Jalal is eager to explore both ends of that spectrum. Furthermore, his goal is to continue to explore his creativity and write compelling music that pushes the boundaries of comfort, because that’s what makes it exciting and fun for mehim. As he concludes, “When I stop surprising myself, then I’ll know it’s time to change my strategy.”
