“We wanted to take a lot of elements from a lot of music that we like outside of metal and heavy music”.
Melbourne based metal outfit Pridelands are on the cusp of releasing their debut album Light Bends after a frustrating last couple of years that saw the band ride the euphoric wave of a highly successful debut EP before, like the rest of the world, falling victim to circumstances beyond their control that saw potential quickly turn to stagnation as the band had to learn how to come to grips with a new reality before focusing their attention to music.
Rather than focus on the many negatives that surround situations fueled by pain, Pridelands instead looked further inward, allowing their inner musical identity to breathe a life of its own and carry the young band into the next phase of their existence with their debut album.
Guitarist Liam Fowler joined HEAVY during the week to shed some light on the album.
“We wanted it to be a piece from start to finish,” he said. “We wanted it to be something that once you start, you don’t wanna stop. We wanted it to be something that people listen to in full, because that’s kind of the way it’s meant to be heard. We put a lot of work into it, and it took a lot of time. We’ve been sitting on it a bit, but we really wanted to go with something really cinematic with a lot of depth. We wanted to try and make sure that we’ve not just written the same song over and over again. We wanted to make sure that every song stood out on its own, and a big intention was to make sure that by the end of it, we wanted every song to be worthy of a single. We wanted every song to be that and could be released. Those were the main intentions, as well as just make sure that it’s us and not half assing anything.”
In the full interview, Liam talks about Light Bends in greater detail, taking risks with your music and how that can change the complexion of an album, the singles released and how they relate to the overall sound, how Light Bends differs from Pridelands’ debut EP Any Colour You Desire, the postponement of UNIFY Forever and more.
Get Light Bends here.
