With music and genres becoming increasingly entwined by sheer volume of releases, becoming a band that stands out from the pack is becoming increasingly more difficult.
Sydney metalcore outfit Together In Tragedy noticed this, and instead of continuing the direct path created by their debut EP Delirium, instead decided to shake things up a little on the recently released follow up Memoriam.
Bringing in elements outside of the general metalcore umbrella such as spoken word and touches of hip hop, Together In Tragedy haven’t so much as changed their sound, they have more refined it into a strangely recognisable beast while still maintaining an air of freshness that is all too rare in modern music.
Vocalist Alex Woollams joined HEAVY to talk about the bands new music.
"Musically we went into it... we wanted to retain our...let me back up a bit,” he measured, searching for the right words. “Obviously we're a metalcore band - or Nu-Metalcore band if you wanna put us into a genre - and we like to focus on the groove of our music. We've always described our sound as aggressive groove because the music is obviously aggressive and heavy. We like to focus more on the groove of the music, rather than try and be the heaviest band or write the heaviest breakdowns, we try to focus on making something that makes you move and bop your head to. With Memoriam we wanted to take elements from the debut Delirium, but we wanted to expand on it and create something that was familiar sounding enough but still each track had some new elements to bring in. We wanted the EP to pretty much sound familiar, but also have fresh ideas and new sounds. This EP does utilise choruses a lot more. There's spoken word, which is a first, there's some hip hop elements and beat stuff in there, so I think we achieved exactly what we were going for."
In the full interview, Alex talks more about Memoriam, the new musical direction and where it came from, fitting spoken word pieces into music, the overall theme of the EP and how it resonates, future plans and more.