Animals As Leaders: Leading The Pack
Without ushering a single word, ANIMALS AS LEADERS have used the past 13 years to level the metal landscape, paving the way for the modern field of progressive music. Their history is a rich one. The band’s 2009 self-titled starting gun put the instrumental djent lords leaps and bounds ahead of their contemporaries – with 2014’s The Joy Of Motion, in particular, representing one of the 2010’s most ruthlessly imaginative opuses with its diverse gene pool and wordless storytelling.
Flash forward to the modern-day and we encounter modern problems. Even in 2022, we’re yet to see an end to the pandemic’s ripple effect on the industry with projects born, moulded or totally erased by its vice grip on the world. Parrhesia, the band’s landmark fifth album, is one such record and we sat down with guitarist Javier Reyes to reflect on its tumultuous inception and canonical significance.
“I mean, it’s kind of nuts,” Javier says with modest disbelief, the band’s stature and success still beyond what he could have imagined when the trio first assembled. With Parrhesia marking the band’s fifth project, it’s a time for reflection as, while the 13 years since their debut passing in what seems only a matter of minutes, it’s impossible to imagine the scene without them. “You know, in 2009, we didn’t know where the band was gonna exist,” the guitarist begins. “There wasn’t really an instrumental band scene. We didn’t know who we were going to tour with, what tours we were going to be asked on or anything like that. So now fast forward 12/13 years later and five albums in; to an extent, it’s a dream come true, right? Throw in some signature guitars and being able to see the other bands bloom in the scene as well. It’s pretty phenomenal.”
Since then, Javier explains, the djent/instrumental scene has certainly “made its mark” and the band’s that ANIMALS AS LEADERS allowed to run are undoubtedly indebted to their brave first steps. He continues, “I definitely feel like ANIMALS AS LEADERS was one of the bands responsible to help shine light into the possibilities of instrumental metal, and the scene emerged pretty fast once the band came out but it’s been slow progress since then.”
As far as ANIMALS AS LEADERS are concerned, however, the only way was up; high up. From Weightless to The Joy Of Motion to 2016’s The Madness of Many, no foot was put wrong on the band’s upward trajectory and their place amongst metal’s modern stalwarts was firmly secured. Yet, even for one of the genre’s brightest lights, the journey had its quirks. “In a weird way,” Javier admits, “we still deal with some issues because we’re instrumental. Certain festivals for a long time wouldn’t book us because they were like ‘we don’t really do instrumental stuff’.”
As impossible as it seems to imagine a band with such a status as ANIMALS AS LEADERS being refused a position on any self-respecting festival bill, their lyricless nature also provided more comical implications. With an audible smile, the guitarist reminisces. “When we first started on tour, during the period where we’d still go out to the merch table and take turns selling, a priest came up and he was like, ‘hey, just so you know, I’m a priest and I’m a huge metal fan, but I can’t go metal shows anymore because of all the skulls and bad words but because there’s no lyrics I can go back to shows now!’”
In spite of any minor hindrance that afflicted their past, ANIMALS AS LEADERS‘ upper echelon status is unquestionable. For years the band has seemed at the top of their game, an illusion that is quickly shattered upon every new instalment as the trio raises the bar beyond the perceived limits. In 2022 we stare down the smoking barrel of the band’s latest weapon: Parrhesia. The outfit’s shortest venture – a partly conscious decision to combat what Javier describes as the decline of attention spa in the TikTok era – but by no means the least provoking, Parrhesia is another boundary pushed and another precedent established. Packing their diverse genetic makeup into their most refined package yet with heightened aggression, and a general coalescence of the band’s past and future. As we begin to meditate on his thoughts towards Parrhesia he begins. “It’s probably one of my favourite albums. To me, it’s the heaviest and fastest album that we have, pulling together characteristics that we’d departed from on the first album with some extra sprinkles on top too. It sounds like new ANIMALS AS LEADERS as opposed to a rehashed version of it which is difficult five albums into a band’s career!”
Brilliance, however, isn’t just ‘made’ and, unsurprisingly, neither was Parrhesia. The album was forged in adversity. Originally slated for a 2020 release, the band was struck at the first hurdle when the US ground to a halt on the first day of their March tour and the close-knit trio spent an entire year without even sharing the same walls. COVID-19’s rupture of ‘regular life’ was a hidden blessing for the new record, breaking the writing/recording process that cyclically intercepted touring and the ‘life’ part of life. “With the extra time there was less pressure in terms of the timeline,” Javier explains. “The decision-making was a lot different and really affected the music’s quality, as well as everyone’s headspace, was fresh versus before when in the middle of touring; it was completely different.”
The aforementioned results really speak for themselves. Parrhesia is undoubtedly another artistic triumph for ANIMALS AS LEADERS but more poignant still is its resonance to the group’s longstanding influence over their own playing field. They’re the trailblazers that other names are pushing to match and, thus, partly responsible for the other spots of genius that are born through such inspiration. ANIMALS AS LEADERS helped bring instrumental metal out of obscurity, they shaped it, gave it fresh life and now, in 2022, they return to the battlefront to shout without words once more.
Parrhesia is out now via Sumerian Records.
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