The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato has released his solo debut, Child Soldier: Creator of God, three weeks early after the album was leaked online by a reviewer.
Puciato posted the full album Friday (October 2nd) via Bandcamp. It was supposed to drop on October 23rd, but will now arrive on other digital platforms October 9th.
In a statement, Puciato revealed that the album was leaked by a music writer who’s been identified. Early online leaks plagued the music industry during the MP3 era, and now most digital album promos are watermarked so they can be traced back to the source of any potential leak.
Puciato issued the following statement regarding the online leak:
“I can’t believe this is a thing someone thought would be cool to do to an independent artist in 2020, but some dipshit ‘reviewer’ (we know who it was) leaked my record. Younger me would’ve put his name out there for everyone to see… but we’re going to use this as a chance to highlight the importance of being adaptable, flexible, and able to roll with the punches and call an audible. Shit happens and you need to be able to move quickly to adapt. Would I like everyone to go buy a digital copy now, or check it out on a streaming site next Friday? Yeah, that’d be cool. Vinyl will still be shipping around the original release date of Oct. 23rd… So to recap: f**k piracy, f**k that dude that leaked my record…”
Puciato also said that he’s “cooking up something cool and related… I can’t really spill the beans on that yet,” but that it will be announced soon.
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In an alternate timeline where the album didn’t leak, Puciato would have shared the latest single, “Down When I’m Not”, which did arrive on digital streaming platforms today. Puciato offered some details on the track — assembled from musical ideas spanning nearly two decades — and why there’s no music video:
“There’s no video because I’m smoked and there’s only so much time in a day and energy in a person,” he said in the press release, “but it’s a fun little alternative summer song about feeling in love and feeling like you’re weightless, racing and being propelled because of it. Makes me think of when I was a little 13-year-old turd-muppet listening to music and crushing on someone. Quick little tidbit, the demo for this musically, which was pretty much the same structure as the final version, was done in 2010 or so, the chorus vocal melody is a spin-off of something else unreleased that I wrote in like 2002, and the other vocal melodies and all of the lyrics came just this last year. It’s kinda cool to hang onto stuff for that long and then have it all connect and come together, and still feel like me, considering all of the time periods it pulled from.”
You can purchase Child Soldier: Creator of God via Puciato’s Bandcamp and pre-order the vinyl LP via Amazon. Stream the full LP below.