Canadian riffbastards Minors are streaming their new album Atrophy in full, exclusively with Metal Hammer.
Atrophy will be released on December 15 through Holy Roar Records.
Flirting with hardcore, the album packs droning, hypnotic riffs, smothering and enveloping all it touches. At times frenzied, at times serene, these seven tracks of gloom encompass everything we love about loud guitars and horrible noise.
If you like Trash Talk and smoking weed, this is for you.
Adding further depth to the pitch black bleakness Minors have created, vocalist Jesse and guitarist Nick have provided us with a track-by-track guide to Atrophy. Lots of riffs, lots of darkness.
Somnolence
Nick (guitar): “This song started out as a riff we’d jam live; we’d play it over and over just to see how long we could play it. It’s a simple idea that really captures a lot of the frustrations and emotions that inspired us when putting this record together.”
Jesse (vocals): “Lyrically, the song deals with grief. I lost a close friend in an awful situation, and to this day I still grapple with the anger and sadness of what happened.”
Bone Pointer
Nick: “When this song came about, it marked the end of a bout of writers block for m. I’d been trying to channel my energy into music for weeks to no avail, and started to think that I’d run out ideas, then one day I tried out this crazy tuning and this song just came out. Pointing the bone is an ancient belief that if you truly believe something is going to happen, it inevitably will.”
Jesse: “This song is about knowing that your negative thoughts will cause you suffering, but not being able to escape them.”
Leper
Nick: “We jammed this tune out after getting our hands on some crazy mind-bending dank! If ever you want proof that smoking out your jam space imparts a certain sound on your music, this is it. “
Jesse: “This song is about rejecting the norms that drag you into a typical cookie-cutter lifestyle, and embracing the notion that turning your back on those norms shuts a lot of doors in life, but opens a whole new set at the same time that not everyone is prepared to open.”
Dark Clouds
Jesse: “This one deals with the tough realisation that you’re wasting your life away doing things you never wanted to do. I made a huge life move because I’d been convinced it was ‘the right thing to do’ only to find myself completely unhappy and regretting my choices. I realised I’d turned my back on who I really was to fit into a structure that wasn’t me. As bleak as it is, turning my back on those pre-determined prospects was the best thing I’ve ever done.”
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Void
Nick: “We like writing songs that use one riff to really draw you in. The breakdown halfway through this one makes me think of Pissed Jeans; it’s got a sort of sassy vibe to it, but still deeply pissed off!”
Jesse: “Sometimes negativity is comforting. Even though I know it’s not the best way to handle things, my mind tells me to keep going deeper into my thoughts, but I know it can’t lead to a good place, so this serves me as a reminder to not let it consume me.”
Miseranaut
Jesse: “It’s not about a miserable astronaut, basically it’s an ode to introversion and how sometimes you just want to be alone with your thoughts without having to answer to other people’s opinions. Sometimes I feel we should just listen more instead of voicing our opinions constantly,=; nobody is in the same place in life and it’s frustrating to me that sometimes people believe they can provide simple answers to other people’s problems. “
Nick: “This song took the longest to write. We wrote it during a big line-up change and it felt like it wasn’t going anywhere – just riff after riff of gloominess. Somehow we slipped the first riff into a different time signature and suddenly it hit super hard.”
Soothsayer
Nick: “Another riff that we’d play live and just see how far we could hype it up, building it up and up. We’d end every set playing this droning outro part and it felt like the most fitting ending to the record.”
Atrophy is out December 15 via Holy Roar Records and available to pre-order now.
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