After the release of their debut EP 'Take Your Time' in 2016, Canberra rock band HighView are set to release their second EP, 'Aftermind', this winter.
First coming together in 2015 as a small, collaborative project, organised by Canberra vocalist Matt Faulkner, the band soon put their focus towards creating new music.
HighView dedicated 2016 to writing and recording 'Take Your Time’ and the year after touring across Australia, supporting a collection of international acts.
But Matt says the band is excited to release their new EP. “We are totally stoked to be releasing in June and we are hoping that we can push it around Australia and internationally, and see where it takes us,” he says.
“We sort of started the writing process in 2015 and we had about ten songs, but we wanted to get a batch of songs out as quickly as we could, so we did one EP which was ‘Take Your Time’... we went out and did a little bit of a tour and then we have come back with the second EP, 'Aftermind'.”
Matt describes ‘Aftermind’ as thematically darker than the band’s first EP. “The second EP is a little bit darker; kind of about the day to day struggles and trying to manage being in a band and having full-time work and just that work-life balance.
“What I really wanted to do with 'Aftermind' was kind of push that big, heavy, America rock kind of sound and really try to aim it at that heavy-metal audience. Try and expand on what we did with ‘Take Your Time’, still trying to keep it radio rock and trying to keep it as accessible as possible.”
With the EP recorded 'in-house', the group is happy with the final product. “With 'Aftermind' we have done everything in-house, so we sat down and have gone through each song in our studio and sort of fine-tuned it as we went, and we were pretty happy with that result overall,” Matt says.
HighView are currently on tour and will conclude the run of live dates in Wollongong tomorrow. “It has been our first, proper headline tour, and it’s been a really good learning experience.
"It’s been a bit surreal going away and playing back to back shows and then coming back and sitting in our offices on the computer, still buzzing from the weekend.
“[Crowd] turn-outs have been great. We are still relatively young, so it is a bit of a grind for us at the moment,” Matt explains. “[But] twenty or thirty people that haven’t heard us before [coming to see us in Belconnen] outside of Canberra is a step towards our final goal.”
Matt says fans can expect a lot of energy from HighView’s live performances. “Lots of high energy, lots of crowd participation and lots of fun.”
