The adventurous and uber creative metal visionaries In This Moment recently released their seventh studio album, Mother, on March 27th right near the start of the pandemic lockdowns that have quarantined most of the U.S. The album is an absolute jaw dropper with its hyper developed, cinematic world building thru sound that singer and creative director Maria Brink has shown she is a master of- both in her songwriting and on stage.

The first visual adventure the band took us on with Mother came in the form of a video for The In-Between that Maria directed alongside the award winning Robert Kley. The horror influence on both the amazingly artful video and the album is undeniable.

“I love a lot of horror visuals and things like that. I love darker things and it’s so funny because people that know me in my everyday life… I am very quiet and if you were in my home, it kinda looks like a white witch’s house I guess. It looks like you are inside the forest, but its still very light and there’s crystals and all those things but I have this…. whole other dark side of me that I really visually love to bring out.”

Maria shares some of the first experiences with the horror genre that have become part of her creative vocabulary.

“As a little girl I was most terrified of course of the first ones we all know like the Halloween films and the Friday the 13th movies and all that. The Shining was mortifying. I was SO scared of The Shining when I was a little girl! But I loved it and I think that’s what we all kind of fall in love with is the…fear gives you an adrenaline rush and you can’t look away. It brings you to the edge of your seat. I think there’s an exhilarating feeling that’s in all of that. Also I think with music with the dark, there is this strength..this POWER to it. My darkness, the horror visuals we bring, almost protects me. For more recent things when it comes to horror, for shows, I love- obviously American Horror Story I’m super inspired by. I think its such a visually stunning show and The Handmaid’s Tale I think is actually very visually stunning as well. I love the symbolism and colors. I really love when they mix horror, with visual artistic looks.”

As for the magic of experiencing the new album live, tour plans alongside Black Veil Brides, Ded and Raven Black were put on pause. Knowing this was going to be the reality, the band decided they would stick to the original release plan instead of postponing, which panned out quite well as the album shot straight to the Billboard charts in the first week..

“I’m so glad that people are connecting with it, we’re so grateful! I think that it was a tricky decision. We weren’t quite sure where to go. In some forms of course we knew, releasing an album that we wouldn’t be touring on with everything that was happening could kind of hurt us but we also looked at the other side of that which is, it could also help a lot of people. We need something to escape with right now whether its music or movies, some sort of entertainment or a walk or whatever. People need distractions so we just said lets just do it and we’ll figure out ways to stay connected with everyone. This will end and we will be back on the road to tour it so, we just kinda took a chance on that.”

For more with In This Moment’s Maria Brink, including some incredible ghost stories, a behind the scenes look at the video for The In-Between and the creative process on the new album, check out The Boo Crew Podcast episode 126 available on ACAST, Apple and wherever you get podcasts!

Follow Maria Brink and In This Moment on:

Instagram: @mariabrinkofficial
Instagram @inthismomentofficial
Twitter: @mariabrink
Twitter: @officialITM

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Instagram: @talesfromtheboocrew
Twitter: @talesfromtheboo