New Drowning Sea God Records signing Meridian Sun have made something of an impact in the metal underground with The Curse, a progressive doom/psych full-length made up of three songs. The label spoke to the band about the album’s genesis.
Drowning Sea God Records: Tell me about your songwriting process.
Meridian Sun: The songs developed over a long time – years, really. The Curse in particular as a song took a couple of years to be completed as it’s more or less an album-worth of material in itself.
The starting point for everything is riffs. Sometimes [guitarists] Martin or Rich would bring a fully formed riff idea or section; other times a section might develop from a seed of an idea over months and end up vastly different from how it started out.
Believe it or not, there were quite a few ideas that were cut as well!
DSGR: How do the other instruments come in?
MS: We would often joke that the initial guitar ideas would have ‘too many notes’ or ‘too much widdle’, having been first worked out for hours before bringing to the practice room. It’s at that point that the band would focus on getting the groove right with the rhythm section and focus on the orchestration and dynamics.
Use of effects pedals also plays a part in the practice room alongside using a nice, driven valve amp to get the sounds and tone to finish off the arrangements.
Vocals always tend to be the last piece of the puzzle and sometimes lead to some more tweaks, mostly section lengths and structure. Riffs often get simplified further into the songwriting process to allow more space for vocals.
We brought all the ideas together over many hours together in a rehearsal room before the pandemic.
DSGR: Where do you get inspiration from?
MS: As a band, we have diverse tastes in music spanning all kinds of metal, rock and other random genres.
Martin used to play in a prog math rock band and has a background in jazz but also didn’t stop listening to Meshuggah exclusively for 3 months straight. [Bassist and lead vocalist] Chris once had a rule that he would not listen to anything recorded after 1974. Rich is a big fan of stoner and progressive metal, especially Tool. Chaz has played drums in hardcore and emo bands, sings classical music and listens to a wide range of genres.
Bands we were all really into at the time included Elder, Pallbearer, Inter Arma, Opeth and Isis. But there are so many influences to draw on. It all comes together when we try to play something interesting that we all like. But as we are all super-nerds, the songs just kept getting longer – we always had another idea that sounded cool and just felt right at the time!
DSGR: How did the band come about?
MS: Three of us were good friends from university. We had played together for a few years, and Chris played in a different band with Martin for a while. He was the perfect fit to join on lead vocals and bass.
We officially became Meridian Sun in 2018 and released the track The Curse as a standalone single/EP.
DSGR: You chose someone unknown in the metal world to record and mix your album. Can you say a little more about why you chose Jamie [Elliott Field]?
MS: Jamie had long been a friend of the band and had worked with Martin on a few projects before this one. He has a sensitive ear and always puts in the extra work to get the absolute best out of the music.
The recording process was really cool as the songs got elevated even further. Jamie was great at suggesting different ways of playing some of the sections and has insane attention to detail, even when we are still up at 2am trying to record the perfect little bit of feedback so the transitions could flow nicely. The production ended up with these subtle layers to it that we absolutely loved.
He’s also super pro at recording vocals – we were really happy with the performances in the end.
DSGR: You’ve been hoovering up the accolades for The Curse. How do you feel about it and what’s next for the band?
MS: The reaction to The Curse has been incredible and we’re so appreciative of all the love we’ve been getting. It feels great to have something we’ve put so much time and graft into getting some recognition.
A huge thanks to everyone that’s streamed, bought, shared or reviewed our music, especially Metal Storm, who also nominated The Curse for debut of the year and stoner metal album of the year.
A big thanks too to Spyridon at Drowning Sea God Records for the amazing work he’s done getting the release out there.
DSGR: What’s next for Meridian Sun?
MS: We’re starting on some new music, but because we’re spread out around the UK a little more, our writing dynamic has changed a bit, so we’re adjusting.
Hopefully some new material will rear its head soon. There are riffs in the pipeline and the reaction to The Curse has inspired us to finish the new material.
Find out more about Meridian Sun’s critically acclaimed debut album The Curse.
Drowning Sea God Records 