Implore: The Best Band You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

There are a lot of hidden gems lurking out there in the world. In fact, it’s worth thinking about all the bands that you might never even get the chance to hear thanks to the wonderful and slightly overwhelming saturation of musical artists available for you to check out. There is such a massive broad selection of potentially earth shattering music out there that it can be a tough time discerning the rubbish from the revolutionary. For those who might not be familiar, IMPLORE are easily one of the finest bands you likely haven’t had the chance to fully experience, given their footing in the musical hierarchy thanks to their incredibly abrasive yet varied crust-grind-death-core.

The journey to the point they are at now has been a long one, and it’s been one that has involved dragging themselves up and down the continent in search of new ears to rupture. It has all been in the name of a quest to simply, as vocalist and bassist Gabriel ‘Gabbo’ Dubko puts it, “just go on tour and play”.

And indeed IMPLORE take that mantra of getting their asses into gear, hitting the road hard, and playing even harder shows and they work into their very DNA. Gabbo explains how the band recently played a show in Barcelona, some distance from the group’s Austrian home. “We took two planes, drove I don’t know how many kilometres, just to play an hour of music.” He explains, and the matter of fact way he delivers it makes it seem like this isn’t the first time IMPLORE have had a long journey to get somewhere. But it is the follow up that luminates a deeper reason for the band travelling the way they do. “But it’s exciting, it’s more than just an hour of music. It’s everything in between, the drives, even the waits. Like when we were waiting for flights, it was fucked!”

As heartwarming as it is to hear Gabbo talk about how close the band are, it hasn’t always been sunshine and roses. It wasn’t until 2015 that [Gabbo] was able to secure the second longest serving member in Petro on guitar. “I started the band in 2012, and had a few different members that when touring became an issue for them, they just left the band.” It’s a story of Gabbo leaving bodies behind him as he forged a path for IMPLORE, and it hasn’t been in vain either, given the fact that the band are on the eve of releasing their third album, Alienated Despair, the second for their Century Media label.

Gabbo will be the first to tell you that having a few different hands in the writing process has given every IMPLORE release it’s own unique flavour of hatred. “Everybody brings their own influences and tastes to the music. It’s good that I knew everyone individually, and I know every album because I’m the only member on all three! I know why the first one sounds like it does, I know why the second one sounds that way. I think the new album is the best we can do.”

IMPLORE are a sum of their parts, both then and now, and having Gabbo as the constant member to anchor everything down and drive the machine forward is such an integral part of the band finding the success they are currently feeling. Having toured with the likes of GADGET and also slots at Metal Days, Obscene Extreme, and Death Feast Open Air, there is no shortage of highlights for the band to pick from their career as of late, and the more Gabbo talks about what he wants the band to do, the more it seems like IMPLORE really are only just starting.

When the topic turns to where the band would like to play the most, Australia is the immediate answer from Gabbo. And this comes after the news that the group are currently working on their own US visas so that the first stateside tour can take place. All of these moving parts are just testament to the hardwork and graft put in by IMPLORE. And it’s done in the face of knowing exactly what sort of music they’re pedalling. “We’re the small fish in the big sea. We know our place in the end, we don’t pretend to be something we’re not. We’re like playing in the Champions League but the smallest team at the bottom of the league. I think we will do this for as long as we can. For now we have small, short term goals.”

The goals Gabbo mentions are the aforementioned eventual conquering of the US, and better touring packages in mainland Europe, all building up to the eventual landing downunder. The slow sharpening of the IMPLORE blade will hopefully result in a razor sharp band having cut their teeth through a self-imposed work ethic and the refining of their sound to a lethal point. Sometimes taking the time to look for something off the beaten track can result in discovering a band like IMPLORE, and your music library becomes all the better because of it.

Alienated Despair is out now via Century Media Records. IMPLORE are featured in our latest digital issue. Subscribe to our Patreon Page to read the feature.

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