Stressful times call for soothing measures, and although we're all settling in to whatever our own personal new normals might be by now, it doesn't hurt to have a few playlists of cathartic sounds on hand to help you through these weird old days.
Luckily, we've enlisted the help of a few of our musical friends to supply you with the music they've been turning to since "all this" began.
We've already heard from Trivium's Paolo Gregoletto, who shared his Ultimate Quarantine Jams, from Halestorm guitarist Joe Hottinger, who provided his favourite throwback tunes, from Jamie Lenman who took us all to the movies, from Sepultura's Andreas Kisser, who put together a list of the world's most badass guitar solos for us and from Celtic Frost mastermind Tom G Warrior who supplied us with his quarantine soundtrack, among others.
Today, we're joined by Loathe guitarist and second vocalist Erik Bickerstaffe, who is walking us through the band's love of atmospheric multimedia soundtracks – a fascination which won't surprise anyone who's spent more than a few minutes with their music.
"For us, drawing inspiration from multiple variations of media is essential to keeping our ideas fresh and interesting," he says. "In particular soundtracks from movies, TV shows and video games play a huge part in influencing our musical decisions.
"The difference in approach that is given to crafting atmosphere for a specific moment or scenario within a movies scene, as opposed to crafting a well structured song, is something that we include within our writing process, allowing our outsider influence to live within our music."
Check their playlist out below.
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Loathe's new album, I Let It In And It Took Everything, is available now