Erra: Making Music Fun Again

Metalcore is arguably one of the hottest genre’s in metal at this current point, especially with the news of ARCHITECTS clutching the number 1 spot in the UK album charts. The healthy competition has lit a spark under the bands who fall within this field to ensure they are pushing themselves further than ever before. Following on from the release of 2018’s Neon, US quintet ERRA took the opportunity to evaluate their progress and determine what path they wanted to venture down going forward.

“We try to be pretty open and honest about how we feel regarding our own music. With Neon there were a few times I kicked myself over little things and wish I would have been a little bit more dialled,” admits guitarist/vocalist Jesse Cash. “There was a lot of stress, pressure and time constraints behind the scene and it was a good learning experience for us to say ‘let’s make sure that we never allow those limitations to affect how we feel about the record’.”

March 19th will see the release of their long awaited follow-up self-titled album. An album which could well be their boldest material to date. “I feel like we had sufficient time with this one and everyone was in the perfect headspace to be preparing to write and record an album so I think it’s turned out pretty cool,” explains Jesse. “I feel like our trajectory between this release and Neon has been one of the biggest we’ve undertaken thus far. This time I knew exactly what I wanted to do and get it right so that made it less daunting of a task. This time round we wanted to check on each other and see how everyone felt along the way with how the songs were sounding or how we felt our performances were and make sure that we were really excited about this record cycle and not getting too caught up in any preconceived notions or expectations of what the record was supposed to sound like. Our priority was to make songs that feel good to us and that we look forward to playing live for the next couple of years.”

With their refreshed mindset and determined outlook in tow, ERRA were so confident about the calibre of this material that they made the decision that now was the appropriate time to signify this achievement with a self-titled album. “We felt like we were in a different atmosphere in our personal lives, writing and working on this record together and we felt like we tapped into something new and a fresh perspective. It felt fun again. The process felt pure and natural,” discusses Jesse. “I had a huge list of potential album names in my phone that I’ve added to over the years and I stuck a handful of my favourites into the band chat to see if anything stuck out to them. Up to this point all of our albums have been just one word and I suggested ‘how about we just self-title it?’. Everyone was so psyched about that and I think this is the only record that we could have suggested doing this and everyone being so on board with it. It felt like a confident move and statement about the record.”

“I’m a very critical, self deprecating person and I’m still enjoying listening to the songs now over a year later which is a big indicator that we did a good job. I feel like we’ve been continuing similar patterns musically and visually for a while so to interrupt that at this stage in our career is quite scary but we have faith in the process and in the record so it’s kind of like a full overhaul but we feel like it is all very cohesive and compliments what we are trying to achieve and helps elevate the music.”

The utilisation of dual vocalists has become a trademark of the metalcore scene and this is something that ERRA execute particularly well with the soaring high tones of Cash and the growling underbelly provided by accompanying vocalist J.T. Cavey. Over the course of their career this is something which has become interwoven into their DNA becoming a vital component of their output. They have found with this new material that they have managed to really hit that sweet spot. “The balance between J.T. and myself is something we were really able to figure out on this record and the response from our listeners has been really positive and people love to hear him doing new things with his voice that they have never heard before. We were really stoked to be able to blend our voices together in some songs and then in others there were instances where my voice just wasn’t necessary,” explains Jesse.

“To write a particularly heavy song, my voice doesn’t really fit into that and there are others like Memory Fiction where we did the opposite. We just tried to serve the songs as best we could and stay true to the context. The responses have been awesome from the singles release so far and I feel like I almost take it for granted. I should definitely take more moments to think about how sweet it is that everyone is enjoying the songs and there is not a lot of negative comments on YouTube. That kinda thing can really bum you out as a musician but it’s been extremely positive and it’s hard to say which song is actually doing best. It’s also very positive as the songs are so different too and have their own sort of identity. I think my favourite of the four singles is House Of Glass as I spent a lot of time working on that song, more than any other song on the record. I think there was like a six week period that I was solely working on that song because I could not figure it out or make sense of where I wanted it to go. It was quite unorthodox in comparison to my writing style and what I had done previously. It’s crazy how much time I spent on it but it definitely paid off.”

Erra is out now via UNFD. 

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