Melbourne post-melodic hardcore band Drown This City head north for Halloween Hysteria in October with a bunch of brand new music.
The band are currently working on their next EP and frontwoman Alex Reade says fans can expect something different from the quintet this time around. “New guitars, new tuning, new style – not as much synth and a bit more guitar-driven,” Alex says of their new work.
“I think there's more of a balance of clean vocals to screams than the other songs, so it's different and it's a heavier direction for us definitely.”
It will be the first collection of new music from Drown This City since their 'False Idols' EP in 2016. “It feels like we've had a little bit of a – not a slowing down – but we've definitely chilled out and just wanted to take our time without feeling any pressure to put out content, so I think we're ramping it all up now,” Alex says.
“I'm not a fan of stressing out or feeling like we have to do stuff, I don't like operating from that place; I'm more 'let's chill out and when the time feels right everything falls into place', and it has happened for us.
“We've had some big, big things happen: we've lost members and instead of freaking out about it we've just been chill and literally the best opportunities have appeared in front of us out of nowhere.”
Speaking of, Drown This City will be part of the inaugural line-up for Halloween Hysteria being held at Brisbane's Jubilee Hotel in October. Part of the new festival's charter is to provide more equal performance opportunities for women in the music industry.
Alex says that although she's uncomfortable with differentiating female musicians from their male counterparts, she's proud to be sharing the stage with some other rocking women who she respects. “I do have a bit of a thing about saying 'female vocalists', so I'm not the biggest fan of labelling us all in this way,” she says.
“However I do acknowledge that it is really great to promote women in the music industry and what we're doing. So in saying that, two of my favourite female vocalists – Jelena [Goluza] from Outright and Steph [Marlow] from Falcifer are both playing this festival and they are incredible, inspiring vocalists so I'm really excited not only to play but to then get to see them play.”
Regardless of sex and gender, as the frontwoman of a post-melodic hardcore band Alex is undoubtedly a rare breed and says this makes her strive to set a higher level of expectation for her stage performance. “I have always loved the energy that male performers have on stage,” she says.
“They're strong, they jump around and I've always wanted to encapsulate that power and that strength on stage, and I've always wanted to match that with my own performance. I think that's more an appreciation of other talented people; I need to be the best vocalist I can possibly be up against other incredible vocalists who have worked incredibly hard.”
