Silent Planet have simply launched their extraordinary new album ‘SUPERBLOOM’ by way of Strong State Information. Their fifth full-length in a decade-long journey into essentially the most crushing and cathartic corners of recent metalcore, it finds them at their most intriguing and intense.

The band take affect from the unknown all through the report. Wanting as much as the skies and realising simply how little we find out about what’s staring again at us, the result’s a group of songs that bristle with science fiction wonderment and savage storytelling. Leaping from razor-sharp riffs and pummelling breakdowns to curious synths and alien atmospheres, it’s an album that feels as otherworldly as it’s all-consuming. Crafted throughout a time when every thing may have simply modified for the band following a highway accident in November of final 12 months, it’s testomony to the quartet that they’ve confronted off towards potential catastrophe and are available out the opposite facet with one thing so potent and highly effective.

To seek out out extra concerning the paths they’ve travelled all the way down to create such a stratospheric assertion, we had a chat with the band about each step of this monumental journey.

ROCK SOUND: How does it really feel to be at this level in your journey and be capable of produce a report that appears, feels, and, most significantly, feels like this?

GARRETT RUSSELL: “The present of doing this music for a few decade now implies that this report comes with one thing particular. We’ve got been in a position to sync up our skill to make music that feels correct to the place we’re proper now. We’ve got made sufficient albums the place we’d put ourselves into it but additionally do the factor that we thought that we have been purported to do. With this album, and that is largely due to Daniel Braunstein, we have been in a position to seize a selected second. It comes from spending loads of time collectively as a band and having numerous conversations about what we wish to be. Our hope is that Silent Planet isn’t a static sound however an evolving sound. This explicit report allowed us to dial into that. I don’t suppose that might have occurred with out the period of time that now we have had collectively.”

RS: What would you say have been essentially the most fruitful of the conversations you had? What have been the preliminary ideas you shared with one another about what this album may and needs to be?

GARRETT: “The pandemic was undoubtedly a part of it. Mitch, Alex and I began dwelling collectively, which reveals with the preliminary course surge. That’s by way of making the album extra sci-fi alongside the making an attempt of recent issues.”

MITCH STARK: “Yeah, mainly, once we began writing for this one, we have been all feeling completely different ranges and completely different shades of frustration at how issues shut down. It was a horrible factor to stay by, and being caught at dwelling and unable to journey, tour and keep our livelihoods was the principle catalyst. Being cooped up, stressed and aggravated meant that I resonated with heavier and extra aggressive issues popping out at the moment. I felt it could be fascinating to push the band in that course as properly. The primary issues we wrote have been ‘:sign:’ and ‘Arunnaki’, with the extra synthy and sci-fi-based stuff coming afterward. At first, it was centred round that feeling of, ‘Man, being at dwelling sucks and I hate this’. I wished to tour, and I wished to make stuff that represented what we have been feeling. COVID actually sucked the life out of us for a minute.”

RS: It reveals as a result of the consequences of it are nonetheless reverberating even in any case this time, not simply within the artwork being made however in our actions and reactions to issues. Nevertheless, what comes from these laborious days is the pursuit of creating artwork that makes you’re feeling fully reverse to that. Is that the place the otherworldliness and give attention to the larger and broader image of the world we stay in actually begin to take maintain?

GARRETT: “There may be that want for one thing grand and greater than ourselves. It’s humorous that essentially the most main UFO launch occurred at first of the pandemic when the US Navy launched the Tic Tac footage. Then, much more just lately, there have been extra congressional public hearings, alongside different international locations, talking about extra-terrestrials and the possibility of alien life. It makes you marvel if it’s as a result of this world is burning that we’re searching for salvation outdoors of ourselves. Or may it’s that this stuff outdoors of ourselves are returning due to the state of issues? Both method, it’s an fascinating thought.”

RS: Is there a consolation in that, or does it function a terrifying inspiration? The concept of there being one thing greater than we all know proper now and never having the ability to clarify it absolutely?

GARRETT: “I discover consolation in it. If you concentrate on the universe and the way it’s consistently increasing, we’re lower than a speck of sand on the whole seaside within the grand scope of issues. I do discover that basically lovely. I do know that some folks discover it horrifying after they think about how microscopic we’re. I take into consideration the that means and the depth of what we really feel, and to suppose how small we nonetheless are it actually shatters our paradigm. I really feel as if that’s loads of what this album is making an attempt to level to. We have to preserve our sense of marvel and chance open as a result of irrespective of how far now we have come, we nonetheless have solely simply began to scratch the floor of what the larger sense of actuality might be.”

RS: It’s been round a 12 months because the highway accident which the band was concerned in while out on tour, proper in the course of the creation of this report. What was it prefer to get better from the trauma of what you went by after which return to making an attempt to proceed writing?

MITCH: “To be sincere, the period of time we spent reeling from what had occurred was possibly two or three hours. Understanding that no person was critically wounded and every thing was okay. Then, it was proper again to enterprise, for higher or worse. We have been traumatised and every thing, however we have been able the place we couldn’t actually simply cease. It took a little bit time for us to get again to fascinated with the album as a result of we had simply began the tour. We have been in the course of a reasonably lengthy grind. So getting dwelling from that, I undoubtedly keep in mind getting in my mattress and considering, ‘Holy shit’. Like, that was one of many craziest issues that has ever occurred to me, possibly all of us. However coming again dwelling and being protected undoubtedly put much more of a hearth below me to push the album creatively so far as we may. We’ve got toured for ten years with out incident. Having that occur wakes you to the chance that this stuff can occur to you. Having that sense of human fragility introduced to you, that life or demise, there’s no method that it’ll not pressure you to take a look at every thing you’re doing and suppose, ‘I want to offer this 120%’. This might be the final one. We may all stroll out of our entrance doorways and slip and fall, and that’s it. However once you do that for a dwelling, you’re at all times prone to one thing taking place. I feel all of us possibly awoke a bit after that. We put ourselves into the music however did what was anticipated of us like Garrett stated earlier. This time round, we knew we would have liked to do absolutely what we wished. Depart all of ourselves inside this, since you by no means know if it’ll be your final assertion.”

RS: If this was to be the final assertion that Silent Planet was to make, how would you sum it up? How does it really feel for you as a band if this was your final assertion?

MITCH: “It’s that sense of marvel within the unknown. Not considering that now we have every thing found out, however all people needs to imagine they’re right. Whenever you evaluate that to the remainder of our albums, they’ve a theme or a narrative being instructed of various folks and completely different illnesses. This report is utilizing a totally fabricated story to do one thing comparable. The top end result, although, with the ultimate tune, ‘SUPERBLOOM’, to me seems like what now we have been saying for 4 albums now. Commerce your certainty for awe. I feel that’s what our band has been about. We’ve got had catchphrases, however that does summarise every thing. Don’t assume that you simply’re proper about every thing. Don’t assume that you simply’re mistaken about every thing. There may be a lot that we don’t perceive or know, even inside our personal world. If solely all people walked round much less optimistic that they have been at all times in the appropriate about every thing and held this paradigm of openness to different prospects.”

GARRETT: “That’s it. It’s a typical theme all through us. If something, this album represents it higher. It’s us entering into a brand new part of what it means and represents. It’s our mantra.”

RS: There’s a pleasure within the awe of what might be, and generally that’s extra highly effective and vital than the issues we will see in entrance of our eyes. All through the Silent Planet story, you will have left every thing on the market when speaking about injustice, tolerance and understanding inside so many points. Generally, that has led to darkish locations. Nevertheless, with this, there isn’t a conclusion to what you’re expressing. There may be solely mild and the chance inside the mild. Is that one thing you can really feel once you realised simply how far you had pushed with these songs?

GARRETT: “The extra I study astronomy and the material of our universe being so largely unknown, the extra I realise the scope and scale draw us again to the concept of ‘What if?’. This report, lyrically and musically, centres across the ‘What if?’ and we really feel like we have been in a position to concurrently get bizarre in addition to take steps in direction of making music that’s accessible to a distinct viewers. Perhaps even a wider viewers, I don’t know. In opening up and nonetheless evolving, now we have tried to indicate how vital it’s to us to not make the identical report twice.”

RS: There’s a misguided opinion inside heavy music that changing into extra accessible is a sin. Nevertheless, in actuality, all you’re doing is making one thing that extra folks can discover themselves inside. Silent Planet is about folks discovering the songs that talk to them, and the extra folks that may do this, the higher this entire journey turns into…

MITCH: “I really feel like that is the primary album that now we have finished that has a gateway tune in ‘Antimatter’. We’ve got by no means skilled one thing the place folks have been popping out of the woodwork. I feel folks within the heavy world minimise and look down on a band after they begin to do one thing which will really feel a little bit bit extra mainstream, even together with one thing like synths. But folks can odor when that pursuit is phoney when individuals are doing one thing as a result of they wish to get wealthy and purchase a Tesla. For us, it simply issues to be that we truly like this and we like writing like this. An enormous a part of what makes this enjoyable and rewarding is approaching every report as, ‘How can we stretch Silent Planet to its restrict?’ If nothing else, ‘SUPERBLOOM’ has been a cool experiment, and the response implies that the following factor we do might be extra on the market and completely different. I’m very enthusiastic about that, and I’m already stoked to make it.”

RS: To nonetheless be discovering methods to check one another in addition to yourselves is a testomony to the ambition inside the band. To be making one thing that the variations of you from a decade in the past would by no means have imagined you can make. What’s it that you simply really feel has allowed you to delve into these areas?

MITCH: “One of many greatest issues has been how rewarding it has been to observe different bands push the envelope over the past 5 years. To see what they’ve been doing and the way folks have been receptive to it has helped large quantities. A decade in the past, my notion of a metalcore listener would have been that they have been close-minded. No breakdowns are taking place, in order that they don’t care. Perhaps again then, that was true! So, it has been inspiring to observe that change as a result of bands are paving the way in which and taking heavy music ahead. I would like nothing greater than to be seen as one of many bands who’re making an attempt to try this. We glance round and see our friends reinventing what it means to be a heavy band, and we owe loads of it to them. Additionally, to the followers for rising and changing into extra open to issues inside the style.”

RS: The ‘SUPERBLOOM’ is a selected factor, a blossoming of wildflowers unexpectedly at a selected time inside the Californian desert. The place inside the artistic course of did the affiliation between what you have been making and what this phenomenon represents?

GARRETT: “I used to be writing the tune ‘SUPERBLOOM’ earlier than we knew we’d be calling the album it as properly. I knew what it was being from California, however I nonetheless googled it to test if it was one phrase or two. Proper after I did that, I noticed that there was an article posted simply an hour prior by the Los Angeles Occasions saying that the Superbloom had formally begun. It was actually bizarre that it was taking place round us, and it had been subconsciously bouncing round. The album finally being known as it made sense for 2 causes. The primary is it’s the last monitor. The second is the concept of ‘SUPERBLOOM’ having hidden and additional meanings inside the background story of this report’s idea. It’s the expertise of somebody going from one state, which is human, to changing into another sort of organism totally. That story is one thing that we’re going to have loads of enjoyable with over this launch, slowly revealing extra to folks.”

RS: So, inside that story, do you personally view that transformation you’re describing as one thing optimistic? Or is there trepidation in what you’re going to be depicting?

GARRETT:  “I actually really feel as if it’s inside that marvel and terror of the unknown, and it relies on who you’re and what your stage of ego attachment is. It would fluctuate from individual to individual inside this expertise and inside realising that they know much less and fewer as they watch themselves develop into one thing else. That’s one thing we will do kicking and screaming, or it’s one thing we will do as a way of relinquishing management. That’s one of many major themes of the report, but additionally what we needed to study as a band. There may be a lot to study being affected person and being round one another, each out and in of the band. It’s like every relationship or marriage, the place there’s a loving compromise to be made. We study to place the wants of all in entrance of our personal, and hopefully, that comes by.”

‘SUPERBLOOM’ is out now.