In our never-ending quest to give you, the reader, the best music available, we present the Revolver Bootleg series. Throughout each month, we’ll post cool, new tracks right here for you to hear before anyone else.

This installment is an exclusive stream of the song “A Selection Unnatural” by American death-metal stalwarts Black Dahlia Murder, off their forthcoming album, Deflorate (Metal Blade), which doesn’t hit stores until September 15. So crank up your speakers, and read on to see what vocalist Trevor Strnad has to say about the making of the song and why it may “baffle modern medicine for centuries to come.”

REVOLVER What’s the song about?
TREVOR STRNAD I was watching some crazy shit on birth defects on the health channel and I wanted to try to recreate the feelings of horror and repulsion that people react with when seeing these kinds of unfortunate images. “A Selection Unnatural” is meant to be a science-fiction shocker about the short life of a terribly deformed mutant of a child. From the moment he is born he is kept in labs and is regarded as a living medical marvel, poked and prodded by scientific minds wondering how such a being could come to be. How could such a thing occur in nature? Is he a human being like you and I? I was trying to find a balance between completely describing the creature and leaving a bit up to the imagination and let the listener decide exactly what it would look like. The person telling the story is meant to sound disgusted, a voice of sheer cruelty and indifference to the child’s life. He wonders what the boy’s purpose was on this earth, scoffing at his plight. The title is obviously a play on Darwin’s theory of natural selection.

Which part of the song did you guys come up with first? And what was the inspiration?
This song was written mostly by our bass player Bart [Williams] with arrangement help and a few additional riffs by Brian [Eschbach], who was the sole writer of the band in the past. When Bart showed us the first riff of the song, we were blown away. I was surprised at how fast and violent it sounded. Very technical. I think Bart having Necrophagist’s [2004 album] Epitaph glued into his car stereo might have something to do with it. When he handed over the bulk of the song to Brian, it really took on a new life. Brian has a knack for writing awesome transitions and arranging the verses and parts in an appealing way; this one is short and snappy but still gets hooked in your head. The Slayerish riff and the chorus riff are both Brian’s; I was actually present when he was writing the quick slam parts during the chorus—pretty tough! All in all I think it’s a ripping track and I like how the song dives right for the throat from the get-go and only let’s up for a second on the breaks.

Was this an easy song to write or record? Why or why not?
I can’t speak for the guys, but I imagine that this was one of the more difficult songs on the strings. There’s a good bit of technical playing here. The lyrics to the song came out pretty quickly once I figured out how to begin. The quick jump into the first verse took some getting used to, took a little practice, as it was something that new for me. I remember recording vocals on the demo at Brian’s house and him seeming pretty pleased with the outcome. This was one of the first songs I completed vocals for in the studio; it went pretty smoothly as it was one of the older songs that we demoed for the album. I had a lot of time to listen back and practice along with the rough tracks, so I was more than ready when the time arose.

How did you decide where to place the song on the album?
Picking the order of songs is a serious business when you are in the BDM. We thought instead of the third track being the slower/weird song—this is a pretty typical move: two raging tracks in a row and then slow it down on the third track—we’d pick up the pace even more. It’s such a fist-pumping song that we knew from it’s inception that it was going to be near the front of the album, part of the frontline assault! The Bart man should be proud of his contributions to the songwriting of this album. Fucking brutal stuff.

What sort of feedback have you gotten on this song so far?
“Wow, that sounds fast!” is what we've heard. [Producer] Jason Suecof took a liking to the line “baffle modern medicine for centuries to come!” and sang it back to me about 20-thousand times while we were working in the studio. Kind of a cheesy line, I'll admit, but apparently catchy.

The Black Dahlia Murder, “A Selection Unnatural”

Photo by Nathaniel Shannon