Ballarat progressive rockers SCY reveal their best effort yet with new EP ‘Collective’
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09.08.2022

Ballarat progressive rockers SCY reveal their best effort yet with new EP ‘Collective’

Across seven tracks, SCY (previously known as Scyphozoan) have crafted their most cohesive and mature record yet.

With a rare mix of unbridled energy, unfiltered honesty and raw passion, Ballarat progressive rockers SCY (comprising Ballarat multi-instrumentalists Eymon Smith and Michael Rix, with the invaluable help of Daniel Fischer and Naomi Nelson as the advisors) are a band that consistently pushes themselves and their art, developing a uniquely captivating and charismatic signature sound that blends energetic, cosmic melodies with tight, all-encompassing progressive metal and rock sections.

Resulting in releases that feel like controlled chaos, SCY – a band fuelled by impressive tech musicality and consistent changes in tempo and style – has just released their newest EP, Collective.

Keep up with the latest music news, releases and interviews here.

Putting Eymon and Michael’s considerable songwriting, instrumental and production chops on full display, the release stands as a heavy output of seven tracks that showcases the collective at their very best.

Earnest and explosive, achingly emotive and captivatingly dynamic all at once, Collective houses some of SCY’s most memorable and mature songwriting to date.

From the get-go in opening track ‘Mantra’ SCY immerses you deep into a pool of fast hard-hitting metal, creepy and chilling cinematic sounds and a barrage of deep vocals and transcending melodies with nods to the likes of TesseracT and Karnivool.

Title track ‘Collective’ is an interesting anthemic listen, with haunting sound effects, abrasive guitar tones and audacious drums, setting out on a melodic journey of sorts that has some beautiful cosmic and spacey synths to get lost within.

Stirring melodies and heart-on-sleeve lyricism and really beautiful and intricate guitars delivers a tender upheaval of emotion in ‘Straight Ahead’, while ‘Shape’ is an accessible proggy track that blends heaviness with more softer touches and futuristic soundscapes that melt into your subconscious, creating a softer, clearer headspace from the EP’s more furious sections.

The 31 minutes release is rounded out by the fragile, sweeping elegance and intriguing storytelling of ‘So It Goes’, and the creative riffs, beautiful, pain driven sounds, and relentless energy on ‘Drain On’, presenting a completely unique reimagining of what the band’s music is capable of.

Closing track ‘Aurora (Don’t Breathe)’ offers a full circle moment, showcasing their atmospheric storytelling prowess before hitting the three minute mark with an impressive and cerebral heavy showcase of musicianship and perfect production in a moment one can only assume will ignite live audiences into headbanging and swirling mosh pits. It’s here that it becomes abundantly clear that Collective is a logical next step for SCY, evidencing more authority, more emotion, musical restlessness, and sonic multi-dimensionality than anything in their previous catalog.

“This EP is perhaps the rawest thing we’ve done emotionally. A lot of decisions have been made in the more experimental moments based on the emotion being conveyed. ‘Shape’, for example, has been arranged to try to evoke certain emotions throughout,” Eymon reveals. “As the heaviness of the songs might indicate, most of the songs deal with some kind of cathartic release of a negative experience.”

Truly the moment the opening track hits the ground running, to the dripping romantic drama in the release’s finale, Collective keeps listened engaged, immersed and inspired, standing as a strong move in the right direction for the young band.

Drawing on a mass of heavy/progressive rock influences, from the likes of Nine Inch Nails, Karnivool and TesseracT, SCY delivers a vision that is pure and unrestrained by musical conformity. With each release, SCY really experiment and play around with their sound and explore complex symbiotic arrangements, always evolving thanks to the progressive nature of their style of music.

Their last release The Regretful Climb was a deep dive into the search for a deeper sound, improving and creating more powerful music, and ‘Collective’ further expands on that with an evolved maturity of writing, playing and arranging matched by a deeper experience and confidence that see SCY at their most heartfelt and unapologetic.

“It’s hard for me to look back at my previous songs and be proud, to be honest! As a musician and as a sketchy audio engineer, I feel that every song offers a learning experience. It could be a lesson learned about arrangement, mixing, dialling in a good tone, or even being brave enough to try playing an instrument in a different way,” Eymon says, reflecting on the band’s journey since 2021’s The Regretful Climb.

“For me the difference between The Regretful Climb and Collective is night and day. The songs are more complete than they’ve been previously, and there’s less reliance on weird shit to make them sound interesting.”

Ballarat progressive rockers SCY dive into the search for a deeper sound with new EP, ‘The Regretful Climb’

The last few years have seen SCY independently build a steady and ever-expanding following over the course of three releases (a self-titled EP, 2020’s Arrive and 2021’s The Regretful Climb). Six years into their career, and Collective could be the reason the world finally starts taking notice of this incredibly talented regional Victorian band.

You can listen to ‘Collective’ here