INTRODUCING: Sarin
Toronto based SARIN have managed to blend the soft with the heavy, not sitting comfortable in either post metal or sludge and doom, but mixing the two to create something ear-pricking good and spine-tingling heavy. We caught up with drummer Aleks Hara about the development of the bands sound, maturing and writing their latest album You Can’t Go Back.
“We started back in 2012 in the garage of our then-bassist’s parents,” Aleks explains the bands origins. “Dave (Wilson, guitar/vocals) posted an ad looking for a drummer, to which I responded to and the rest is sludgy, doomy history. Initially, we were straight-ahead post-metal, borrowing most of our influence from ISIS and just having a great time playing heavy, loud, low-tuned riffs to head bang to.”
The band’s sound has developed a lot in that time, moving from different influences to a sound that’s completely their own. “As musicians, we have certainly become more mature and more open-minded from the days of heavy riffing in the garage,” agrees Aleks. “Our tastes in music have become more eclectic, we are more likely to experiment and try different things, and we all have a lot more freedom on our instruments. For example, Dave is free enough to down-tune his guitar in the middle of a song [like on Thick Mire], Matt (Dakers, guitar) is finger-picking a section in Otherness and I’ve even busted out the mallets in that song!” add bassist Andrew Salmon into the mix for some heavy bottom end and you’ve got yourselves a serious creative force.
It’s not just on the musical side that the guys have progressed, but also in their approach personally to different situations, “On the personal side of things, we have all gone through major relationship upheavals which forced us into personal growth and a new take on who we are as individuals. Today, we are all a bit more patient, forgiving, accepting, and compassionate – while still having a ways to go of course – and the music will always be there to say the things we feel.”
Using music as a tool to craft their emotions into something positive is a big part of what makes SARIN’s latest release You Can’t Go Back so honest and compelling. It’s filled with punchy, heavy riffs, and lighter moments of clarity that balance beautifully. “Dave was drawing upon his experiences of anxiety and identity crisis in the wake of a crumbling relationship when he penned the lyrics, and a few of the lyrics were actually written in the studio, moments before he entered the vocal booth,” Alek tells us about the rawness of the material they produced for this album. “It was visceral and it was how he truly felt in those moments. While the lyrics are sparse throughout the record, if you just watch him play guitar- or until shows resume, listen to it- you can see and hear the emotion without any words being necessary. We have all experienced joy and sadness in relationships and we know that sometimes there’s silence, and sometimes there are heated exchanges, and other times there’s euphoria. This record will hopefully allow the listener to reflect on all of those aspects and what they mean in the context of their own experiences.”
SARIN’s approach their music with as much self-reflection that allows the aggression and tension to balance so well with the uplifting and motivating moments. It’s due to the fact that the band aren’t pinned to achieving a certain sound or style of record; it’s pure, natural creativity. “We wanted to be open-minded, honest with ourselves, and holistic in the way we process and draw influence from our emotions – without shying away from the joyous and enjoyable ones because they are not ‘metal’,” Aleks clarifies, “When you plug into a loud distorted amp, or sit down on a drum kit with a double kick pedal and china cymbals, it is natural to want to focus on the heavy, dark, sad, and angry aspects of our psyches. We tried to balance this by challenging ourselves to process other emotions on the spectrum through that same metal aesthetic. I am looking forward to even more boundary-pushing and open-mindedness on future records – while keeping things heavy and loud!”
The band have moved within the realms of sludge, doom and post metal in the past, but on this third release, they’ve pushed themselves to look further than genre for their sound. “This was an album where we were going to partially shed some of our post-metal roots and allow other ideas, themes, and sonic landscapes to come in,” Aleks describes, “Put differently, we wanted to have more tools in our toolkit to become better storytellers and convey a cohesive and impactful narrative without feeling caged-in. We also wanted the emotions to be more pronounced and I remember us saying during the writing process something along the lines of, ‘Let’s make the lows lower, and the highs even higher’. With this in mind, I think we achieved it because there’s no other SARIN album that delivers the emotional highs and the lows as strongly as You Can’t Go Back.”
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