Killswitch Engage’s Jesse Leach sings for a lost New Orleans theme park on ‘Jazzland’
Album cover photography: Todd Sipes. Artwork courtesy of Abandon The Band via Atom Splitter PR.
Jazzland was the original name of the eastern New Orleans amusement park that later became Six Flags New Orleans. Now it’s the name of a metal single: Killswitch Engage frontman Jesse Leach sings on Abandon The Band’s “Jazzland,” released November 12. Its video was filmed inside the park’s ruins after Hurricane Katrina.
The song grew out of drummer and photographer Todd Sipes’s visits to abandoned places. For 15 years he photographed buildings that had outlived their original purpose. A still image could show what was left of a place, he explained in the album announcement, but it couldn’t convey what it sounded like to stand inside. He started writing songs to fill that gap.
“Jazzland” leads Abandon The Band’s debut, ’Tis a Fearful Thing to Love What Death Can Touch, due February 26, 2027, according to the announcement. Sipes wrote and played drums on all ten tracks, each named for a site he photographed. Leach voices the New Orleans chapter; Far’s Jonah Matranga sings on “Bolivar,” and Spineshank’s Jonny Santos takes “Nevele.”
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