It’s been 20 years of technical death metal from the Manchester, United Kingdom, juggernauts Ingested. When asked what the recipe is to keep doing what they’re doing, guitarist and backup vocalist Sean Hynes highlights stubbornness and little naivety. Two decades can be a long, winding road, with many ups and many downs, but it’s the mindset you have that truly gets you through it.

“There have been so many occasions when the band probably should have called it a day over the years, but we just persevered. It’s always that feeling of what’s next. If we give up now, what are we missing next? When we’re on the precipice of calling it a day, we just keep going and see what happens. When you continually go against the odds over and over and over, you end up eight albums deep 20 years in.”

Their eighth studio album, Denigration, is out now, via Metal Blade Records, and was produced by Nico Beninato at The Arch Studios in Southport, U.K. The album is definitely tailored for life because they feel these songs are served best in that situation. They’ve given it proper peaks and troughs, and show you just how wide a breadth of creativity the band really has.

“It’s a correlation of all the influences we’ve done over the years,” explains Hynes. “Every album we’ve ever done has added something new to the table, some slightly different things that we’ll try and experiment with. We’ve owned all that and put it into one complete, cohesive album, and Denigration does represent a career-spanning sort of collection of songs. I’m very proud of it.”

Lyrically, this album was a huge collaboration with four writers this time, all pulling from their own personal experiences. Hynes says there’s never really a specific theme, but more things each member is going through – somehow leading to a sense of togetherness as a collection. The idea is to let the listener make their own interpretation, but most of the topics covered touch on mental health and what’s going on socially.

“You have something to say at that moment,” shares Hynes. “You’re pulling from something specific. It could be tragedy, it could be death, it could be you going through a hard time; your mental health is wrong, you’ve got self-doubt. All that stuff comes through.”

Ingested has spent much of the spring on the “Chaos & Carnage Tour” supporting Thy Art is Murder and Carnifex. Hynes shares that a tour of this caliber yields good results in crowd turnouts and people supporting the band. He says it’s one of the best U.S. runs they’ve done in a bit because of how high-profile it is. It’s not surprising, however, that they are a part of it, because for the last 20 years, they’ve put in the work, and now it’s time to reap the rewards.

“It’s always exciting releasing a new album,” beams Hynes. “A lot of our fans are really, really stoked on it, and that makes us feel good. I’m happy people are still supporting the band after so many years. Thank you for sticking with us.”

Photo credit: Jordan Burke