When Parkway Drive released IRE in 2015, Australia’s metal scene was shook. With the Byron Bay five-piece being renowned for pretty much establishing metal music’s prominence within the nation, it took a lot by surprise when they changed their own sound so dramatically. Luckily though, the change was embraced, with legions of fans worldwide flocking to their new-found stadium metal sound.
With album number six now approaching, it seems the Parkway lads are continuing to push the boundaries of their sound, as elaborated by Winston McCall, the groups lead vocalist.
“I think we had the same idea. When we started it [the album], we all decided that we weren’t going backwards on our sound and that we would keep trying something different and we were all on board with that,” McCall explains.
“This time around the goal was to highlight individual characters of songs and to find that unique spark in each song and then to build upon that,” he continues, “it might not be something we had ever done before, but as long as we made it the centerpiece of the sound, we were happy.
“We ended up with ten songs that sound quite different from each other but every song has moments that you think, ‘I never thought Parkway would go in that direction’. We just wanted to make sure it wasn’t cheesy with hooks thrown in for no reason. It is legitimate music that we wanted to push.”
With songs such as ‘Wishing Wells’, ‘The Void’ and ‘Prey’ already having been released as singles, McCall spoke of the difficulties in selecting songs to act as representatives of what’s to come on Reverence.
“People will probably ‘get’ ‘Wishing Wells’ as it’s one of the heaviest songs on the album in terms of chugging intensity, whereas ‘The Void’ is the simplest song on the album and the rest is very, very varied,” he says.
“It’s not completely unrecognisable; the whole thing still sounds like Parkway from start to finish but there are now so many different characters of Parkway that had never been delved into.
“That was the biggest problem with releasing singles for this album; there wasn’t a specific song that would give people an impression of what the album will sound like because no matter what we put out, people would say ‘what the fuck?”
With Reverence aiming to push the boundaries of their musicality, the most surprising addition, ‘The Colour Of Leaving’ finds itself as the albums emotional closer.
“I can’t even begin to explain that one to be honest; you’ll get it when you hear it,” remarks McCall. “All of these songs were written at a time when we were going through incredible amounts of tragedy and that song was written in the very direct wake of those horrible events. They are lyrics that I wrote within the hours of losing very close friends and family, and it is just what happened to be the result.
“This record is a documentation of a very significant point in our life, so it seemed poignant to put that song down even though it was very hard to actually sing the lyrics,” he continues. “I can’t explain the song, but you will know it when you hear it.”
Reverence is released on May 4 via Resist Records/ Cooking Vinyl Australia.
Written by Alex Callan
