{"id":77026,"date":"2019-03-07T13:00:17","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T13:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/?p=77026"},"modified":"2019-03-08T00:22:17","modified_gmt":"2019-03-08T00:22:17","slug":"how-we-wrote-holding-absence-by-lucas-woodland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alreadyheard.com\/staging\/how-we-wrote-holding-absence-by-lucas-woodland\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Wrote\u2026 ‘Holding Absence’ by Lucas Woodland"},"content":{"rendered":"

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For many bands, your debut album is a substantial landmark in your career. It’s seen as your only opportunity to present a well-rounded first impression. Some bands first albums are seen as stepping stones for what they followed. Nevertheless, the prospect of making your first album is a hefty task, especially if you’re a band with a growing reputation.<\/p>\n

For Cardiff quintet Holding Absence<\/strong>, the creation of their eponymous debut has been a rollercoaster of a journey, full of stops and starts. A combination of creative frustration and a substantial member leaving at the halfway point allowed the band to step back and refocus on their collective goal of producing a coherent album that represents them in the best way possible. And as our 5 out of 5 review suggests<\/a>, it’s mission accomplished for the Welsh five-piece.<\/p>\n

Now as they prepare to unleash ‘Holding Absence’<\/em> to the public and hit the road for a series of headline shows, vocalist Lucas Woodland took the opportunity to talk about the creation of the record in detail – their initial aims, the setbacks, and he thoughts on the final record.<\/p>\n

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I honestly can\u2019t remember when we sat down and started properly writing the album. It was always a goal from day one of this band. I think the importance of this album always weighed on our shoulders and that really helped us naturally choose what was right to release and when.<\/em><\/p>\n

“Thematically and lyrically, the aim was to produce a body of work that was thought out and intrinsically joined at the hip.”<\/em><\/h2>\n

Sometimes it just felt like fate that the album ended up how it did. The first track we composed for this album, ‘A Godsend’, is two years old now and was practically finished before both ‘Saint Cecilia’ and ‘Heaven Knows’. From the beginning, we were really feeling our way around the album and going with what felt natural, and scrapping the songs that didn\u2019t. This soon became a \u201cBeggars can\u2019t be choosers\u201d problem for us – some songs were taking a long time to nail, others we just didn\u2019t believe were right. I think that\u2019s why every song on the album feels so special to me. They all had to fight for their place on the record, against pretty stiff competition, in hindsight.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sonically, the aim was to sound like an angsty, impulsive and naive post-hardcore band writing record number 1. Biting off more than we could we chew with style – kinda like how ‘Hybrid Theory’ (Linkin Park) or ‘Orchestra Of Wolves’ (Gallows) felt. Thematically and lyrically, the aim was to produce a body of work that was thought out and intrinsically joined at the hip. Like these songs couldn\u2019t exist without one another. We wanted this to sound like ‘The Black Parade’ (My Chemical Romance) or ‘Vheissu’ (Thrice) – mature and broken in. Though this task sounds impossible, I feel like the juxtaposition worked, to us at least.<\/em><\/p>\n