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Oh, Canada! Thy maple is sweet and Thy metal is mighty! None more so than megaliths Obey The Brave. The five-piece will drop their third full-length album Mad Season this month. With its raw passion and furious determination, the album affirms Obey The Brave as a major heavyweight in the metalcore genre –but there’re no rock ‘n’ roll frills for vocalist Alex Erian, he’s still got the realities of rustic living to pull through before heading out on tour.
“I just got home and I’m actually moving house,” says Erian, “The album is dropping next week [at the time of interview] and yeah, I’m just getting shit ready!” Indeed, it seems to be a “mad season” for Erian. “Definitely,” he laughs.
The new album is, in a good way, all over the place. Starting out super heavy and typically Obey The Brave before they mix up the show a bit – ‘Les Temps Sont Durs’ is a sensational track, touching on the band’s French-Canadian connections. “That song is reminiscent of our first record so yes, it’s all over the place but this record is a lot more diversified and we’re trying to demonstrate some growth, testing the heavy aspect of our band like back in the day, add a bit more melody here and there – I obviously sing a lot more now – it doesn’t sound too pretty, not too beautiful, but yeah, it was quite a challenge, that song in particular.
“A fast track, a bit more hardcore orientated. I consider us more of a metalcore band but that’s definitely a hardcore track. It’s important for me to have at least a song or two on there that touches on our French-Canadian [side], shows off our culture. It’s a lot more personal, in the end, something cool to do with our home.
Nods to home are cool to see in a band and not only do Obey The Brave execute their salute through metalcore and hardcore, they’ve also incorporated elements of hip-hop. ‘RIP’, a collaboration with French-Canadian rap group Loud Lary Ajust – heavy metal of this ilk was joined with hip-hop in a very fluid manner. Obey The Brave’s reason for doing a mash-up of genres is a simple one. “When we play a show, we like to keep a party vibe,” Erian says, “It tends to be no dull moments between blocks of songs and we like to put bits of hip-hop here and there to keep the crowd going. Long story short, we wanted to reproduce that vibe on the album and I’m really happy with the result.
“We tried out different things, new ideas here and there so it’s refreshing not only for us as a band, but the listener as well – we don’t want to put out the same record for the third time.”
“What Loud Lary Ajust brought when we collaborated with them, we could reproduce that live party vibe. I feel like it’s a good representation of how we are as a band, as a performing artist.”
Interestingly for Obey The Brave, the album’s title track isn’t their strongest. Pushing and pulling at all these different elements, ‘Mad Season’ came into being differently. “It kind off sums things up for how we’ve had to face things as a band in the past year or so,” Erian says, “Having to rerecord the album, it’s kind of unreal that the record is out next week, you know?
“It’s an accomplishment for us, we’re happy and that era, we sort of went through… long story short, musically, it’s a song that’s similar to our older material like, it’s definitely worth listening to and it’s a bit more straight to the point and yeah I love it!”
Three years since Obey The Brave’s second album Salvation was released and presumably the reason for the length of time between releases wasn’t down to a creative stump. “Definitely Salvation, as soon as it came out, we had members leave the band… We toured that second album and decided to slow down touring a little bit, then people were disappearing. That was quite an obstacle that definitely tested our limits and commitment to this band.
“We’re still here, we’re sweating and this record is about to come out, which is why I said it’s an accomplishment! We lost momentum there but thankfully, people have been very receptive to our new shit.”
Written by Anna Rose
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