Today West Country based prog metallers Red Seas Fire release their new EP. ‘Resolution’ is the final part of their ‘Mise En Scène’ EP trilogy and offers four songs of textured riffs, and gigantic hooks. Tracks like ‘Hourglass’ and ‘The Mistakes We Make’ are effective and dense in sound.
To find out more about ‘Resolution’, vocalist Robin Adams and guitarist Pete Graves recently took some time out to talk us through the EP track-by-track.
1. Hourglass
Pete: Every now and then a riff will float around in your head for days, or weeks or months before it ever comes out on your guitar. Hourglass was an entire song that had been appearing to me, albeit in differing structures, in almost every bored or spare moment I experienced in the past year and a half. I had been air-guitaring to it and tapping out the rhythms for a long time before I even attempted to record some real world demo’s of it, and when I finally did it we ended up with this hyper aggressive piece of music. Recording this song was as raw and quick paced as the song itself, with very few takes needed on any of the instruments, in an aim to keep it true to the nature of the song, imperfect human fury. This song can be tricky to play live, we’re used to playing a more groovy, evenly paced style so it’s caused us to have to step our game up in the performance department, but the crowds have been responding well.
Robin: Lyrically it’s heavily political. It’s a fast aggressive song and politics is very easy at the moment to feel a lot of aggression towards. It’s probably one of the shortest songs we’ve done. Live this is probably one of the most difficult for vocals, not particularly each part individually but in sequence, real tough. When it came to mixing this track I wanted to translate across to the listener the energy and aggression of the song in the mix.
2. Blood Bank
Pete: This is a song which was written in a segmented sort of style, with the big epic outro being the first part to be written shortly after we had finished the recording of ‘Confrontation’, and the beginning sections being much later and then some finishing touches and the addition of perhaps the most energetic riff in the whole song being added as a collaborative effort right before entering the studio. ‘Blood Bank’ was perhaps the trickiest song on the EP to record, as it was the one with the most refined instrumental parts to play and needed the most precision out of us as instrumentalists, and as such was the one which took the most effort and time to get right. It’s also quite tricky to perform live too given the extra need for accuracy in order for the song to work well which means we’re still developing the ability to keep up the high physical energy levels while playing it well.
Robin: ‘Blood Bank’ lyrically is about internal struggle with one’s self. I think it’s something all humans go through so I wanted to write about it; hopefully people can relate and get what I’m on about in this song. I’m very happy with how this song has turned out, for me it encompasses what we’re about as a band, it’s dynamic, it’s heavy and it’s emotive. The big epic end section is one of my favourite parts we’ve ever done.
3. The Mistakes We Make
Pete: This song is actually the first song that was actually written for the three EP writing cycle we’re just now completing and is the song that spawned the inspiration to partake in a full twelve song writing concept. It is also the longest song that we have ever written and nearly nine minutes long! Given that it’s been a fully written song for around two years now, and since it’s also such a perfect set-ender of a song, we have now ended around fifty shows with it, which is what you could call pretty good practice for perfecting a song! In the studio this song took maybe three takes for drums to be solidly nailed, guitar and bass were equally as quick to get tracked.
Robin: After playing this song live for so long before coming to actually record it, for the final takes of the vocals there were definitely a few parts I ended up changing. Lyrically this song is about the self absorbed and weak-minded people. It covers a wide range of emotion relating to the negative effect they have on others and of course/inevitably, themselves.
4. Ocean Death
Pete: ‘Ocean Death’ was one of the first concepts for the whole three EP sequence, being the final song of the whole thing I had a pretty good idea in my head what it would be right from the beginning. Ultimately Ocean Death is at the end of the story, everything is seemingly calm in the wake of everything that has come before but there is a rage all anew yet simultaneously familiar bubbling underneath the surface, one which comes out at the end. It is definitely the most “studio song” song that we have done, it doesn’t have the same live band feel of our other songs and is there almost entirely for the compositional concept of it. As such recording it was tricky as it wasn’t about jamming over cool riffs and choruses but more finding the right parts and playing styles to fit to the concept but still sound appropriate to the other material on the EP for cohesions sake. In that sense I feel that we were successful with this song and it’s one of my favorites that we have ever done.
Robin: ‘Ocean Death’ is about resolution; it’s about the end. I feel it’s perfecting ending to our series. Vocally it’s completely void of screams with a focus soley on cleans. It’s has a few challenging moments vocally towards the end.
‘Resolution’ EP by Red Seas Fire is out now.