Fires In The Distance: The Healing Process

For the majority 2020 has been a tough year within the music industry as the livelihood of musicians and venues alike has been placed in significant jeopardy. One band that has managed to find a pocket of positivity amongst the chaos is Connecticut based death metal outfit FIRES IN THE DISTANCE. They were poised to release their highly anticipated debut effort Echoes From Deep November in May before being snapped up by a label.

“We were just about to drop the album and then our bass player received a message from Prosthetic Records,” explains guitarist Yegor Savonin. “We got in touch with them and they said that they would love to pick the album up so we decided to take the opportunity and see where it goes. It’s a label that some of our favourite bands have been on for a very long time, like SEPTICFLESH and PSYCROPTIC. Once they took over that to do whatever they had to do on their end we ended up pushing it back a couple of months. Considering how much time it took to get this record ready a few more months wasn’t gonna be that big of a deal.”

With this arrangement in mind, the band decided to move the release date back until September. This has allowed them more opportunities to create accompanying playthrough videos which include a performance of The Lock And The Key recorded entirely from lockdown. The band could hardly believe their luck. “It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around, especially since this is our debut,” states Yegor. “We’ve been playing in bands for over 10 years but as far as this project goes we didn’t have anything out at all. We put one song out, promoted it with our promoter, somebody heard it and they liked it and this whole thing came together. It’s kind of hard to believe really, but now we’re totally excited. We’ve been waiting to get this out for a couple of years. It was recorded I think a year and a half ago, it was like finished and mastered, maybe a little bit longer than that so we’ve been eager for a long time.”

Echoes From Deep November combines the aggressive elements of death metal with uplifting melodic tones. Offering up a diverse collection of instrumentation which will appeal to a wider audience. “It’s kind of an interesting album for me personally because it’s something I’ve never tried before,” admits Yegor. “I’ve been in melodic death metal bands for a long time and they are more straight to the point. You know, blast beats and crazy stuff. I really took some time aside to put a little bit more heart and feeling into this album and it just came out very different. It’s definitely a lot slower than what I’m used to but it’s also very crushing. I think I channelled a lot of my influences into it, more than I have before. Bands like PARADISE LOST, THE MAN-EATING TREE, AMORPHIS. Things like that, it’s definitely very emotionally charged. The response we’ve been getting so far is looking pretty good. I’m glad that people are identifying with it and they’re picking up on the feeling that we’ve put into it. Hopefully, that continues.”

The subject matter contained within the album covers revolves around the theme of mental health and struggles which the band have faced throughout their lives, even during the construction of the material. “The common denominator is the process of overcoming and healing really. There’s a lot of themes like struggles with mental health that go into this record and it’s something that I’ve personally dealt with,” discusses Yegor. “I think everybody in the band has their struggles with it to an extent or another. I’ve worked in social work for a long time. My primary focus is a career. So it’s something that’s very close to me. It’s hard to put it into words, the feeling kind of shines through on its own.”

“At the time I was married and when the album was actually getting recorded I was going through a pretty bad divorce,” describes vocalist Kristian Grimaldi. “My mind was in a really dark spot vocally and I think some of the guitar parts were extremely emotional because I was going through an extremely painful time in my life. That was one of the many layers of this album and I think that’s why it speaks to people. The tracks have got that raw pain that’s very human. The main focus is really on the healing process as opposed to dwelling on the painful part of things because I think that’s an easy go-to for a lot of people. Just focus on the darker side of those particular aspects. But for me, I just wanted to really take it somewhere a little bit different and just focus on something a little more positive even though some parts of the album don’t really sound too positive.”

Echoes From Deep November is out now via Prosthetic Records. 

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