Spiritbox vocalist Courtney LaPlante has opened up on the sense of "existential dread" she feels and how it fuelled the band's new album Tsunami Sea.
The Canadian band's second album was released earlier this month and it's concept and title were inspired by Spiritbox's home of Vancouver Island.
LaPlante says the island being at sea level means there's always the fear that a major event like a tsunami might obliterate the whole place.
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She tells Heavy: "All of our work, everything we've ever made, any body of work, it's always a concept album, but we just don't market it as a concept album.
"This one, the story of this one is just kind of representing, lyrically, myself and then instrumentally Michael (Stringer, guitar) kind of expressing the push and pull that we feel being from an island off the West coast of Canada. It's called Vancouver Island.
"And it's interesting living there, if your goal is to leave the island to go play your music to other people. You just feel so remote and isolated, and it feels impossible to leave. And then you leave and you kind of miss it.
"So that kind of really intertwines to me with depression, deteriorating mental health. There's the deep depression and then there can be mania and then deep depression, and it's just so polarizing.
"It reminded me of the ocean, it reminded me of growing up surrounded by water and it reminded me of how where we are from, where we are at sea level, if the big earthquake as everyone here calls it, the 'big one', ever happens, our whole island will either completely be submerged by water and we'll all die, or at least we'll be even more cut off and no one will be able to get us any food or anything.
"And so it's just kind of that existential dread under the surface that you kind of push down and suppress. To live your life, you have to kind of push it all the way down and not every day wake up and be, like, 'Hopefully it's not today.'"
Despite the feelings associated with the album's concept, LaPlante insists she's excited to be able to share it with the world.
She adds: "A lot of work went into it. When you do a full-length album, usually, if you do it more traditionally, like how we are doing this one, it's this whole dramatic climactic rollout. You want to give it a fair shot, you want everyone to hear it, so you start promoting it early.
"And so it's just this huge, big climactic thing. I'm at the point now where I'm really excited because now, this is the fun part, having everyone hear it."
Spiritbox will tour North America from April and are set to return to the UK for Download festival in June. They will then support Linkin Park at London’s Wembley Stadium on June 28.
