If Greta Van Fleet‘s 2018 debut album Anthem of the Peaceful Army was their Led Zeppelin I, then they’ve already jumped to Led Zeppelin IV with their sophomore effort, The Battle at Garden’s Gate.

Speaking with ABC Audio, frontman Josh Kiszka shares that he and his band mates wanted to create a more “cinematic” album on an “epic scale” with their second release.

“That’s something we’ve always wanted to do, but we didn’t think that it would be as well-received if we were coming out of the gate with some work like that,” Kiszka explains.

“After three years of really going around the world and playing to people and having some kind of ongoing narrative, that created, I think, more of a platform for us to be able to do this appropriately,” he adds.

Battle is a grander, more conceptually driven piece than its predecessor, and Kiszka describes it as an “extension” of Anthem.

“It almost exists in a similar realm,” Kiszka muses. “I think it’s a little bit more of an exploration of some of those themes, some of those civilizations or characters or worlds.”

Anthem and Battle are also bound together by their shared war imagery, with the latter acting as a sort of Two Towers to the former’s Fellowship of the Ring.

“I would think if you were to have a place like what I’m describing in [Battle], you would probably have a lot of conflict, and there would probably be a lot of war,” Kizska says. “I think Anthem of the Peaceful Army was a little more innocent, and I think this is a little bit of the losing innocence, humanity losing innocence.”

The Battle at Garden’s Gate will be released this Friday.

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