One of the reasons people start bands, aside from just wanting to make a massive racket, is to quench the creative juices inspired by their heroes. It’s a lifetime ambition for all artists to play with the bands that made them fall in love with music in the first place, but for Sydney-based metalcore mob Polaris, that dream is about to come true a little sooner than they imagined. Not only are the five-piece causing quite a stir in their homeland at the moment, but in just a few months they’ll be hitting the road with fellow Aussies Parkway Drive as support on their A Decade Of Horizons tour. Bassist and vocalist Jake Steinhauser can recall exactly where he was when he got the call about the gig.
“I was at work and couldn’t check my phone until my lunch break,” he laughs excitedly. “I remember being over the moon about it, especially knowing it was a 10-year anniversary for an album that was a really, really big deal to all the members in our band. When that second album dropped we all lost it. Lots of the songs we were writing when we were young were very much based on Parkway riffs so it’s a very important album for us and we’re just honoured to be supporting them for this.”
Polaris’s current line-up came together gradually, with each member joining the fray over the course of the last six years. The most recent addition to the band, in 2013, was guitarist Ryan Siew, who was still in high school at the time and who had to be backing-tracked if the band played any club or out-of-state gigs. Now free of the pesky shackles of education, the band have been working full pelt to develop their sound, a solid metalcore foundation bolstered with elastic grooves, melodic leads, bombastic choruses and technical flourishes that come to a head on new album The Mortal Coil. It’s another great addition to an Aussie metal scene that’s already creaking under the weight of exceptional noises.
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“I think that the scene moves in waves and it’s heading up towards another peak again,” says Jake. “I feel like we had a real explosion back in the mid-00s and there were a lot of kids who were wanting to start bands. Then those kids grew up and bands like Northlane and In HeartsWake emerged. Following that, the people who were inspired by them are now starting bands.”
Does he hope Polaris will inspire a new generation? “It’s not something you think when you start up, but we were 100% inspired by watching the bands in our scene and going to local shows, so the idea that it might come full circle would make me very happy,” he says. “I was [recently] freaking out, telling stories about when we went and saw Parkway and being like, ‘If I could just play with that band…’ Fast forward 10 years, we’re actually playing with them.” A dream come true indeed.”
The Mortal Coil is out now via Sharptone, and available to order from Amazon.
