Polar: Embracing Change. Promoting Positivity.
Change is something we must all face, whether we like it or not. On the topic, psychologist Abraham Maslow once said: “in any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety”. For metalcore veterans POLAR, the former was the only option. Over the last year the band has faced a massive shift, not just sonically but within their lineup, and have had to face it head on and embrace the complications to make the best of a bad situation for themselves.
Their new album Five Arrows is the beginning of this brand-new era for the band and is a symbol of their resilience, showing those around them that it is possible to get through the hard times. “I think the new stuff that we’ve done has definitely sort of got underneath some people’s skin more than others,” says vocalist Adam ‘Woody’ Woodford. “It’s enjoyable to write challenging music that does get a response.” This mindset is a breath of fresh air from a band that has been around the industry ringer once or twice and knows the ins and outs of a job where most participants would rather just focus on the positives.
“Opinions are important,” he continues. “If people have taken their time to listen to something and it hasn’t necessarily been the thing that they wanted or were hoping for from us, they’ve still taken the time to listen or write something, whether we see it as good or bad.”
POLAR is not a new band by any means, but their new sound is brought together by the different influences and generations that make up the group. Five Arrows has allowed the band to push their own boundaries, all whilst keeping hold of the rawness and energy that existing fans have come to love. Lyrically, it allows Woodford and co. to dig into themes of destructive power and the consequences that come of it. “I was put in some situations that I didn’t really want to be in, and they probably left me a little bit angrier than I wanted to be,” says Woodford. “I’m very lucky in the sense that I have a vessel where I can push that anxiousness into something positive, and I’m a strong believer of making negatives into positives.”
POLAR’s time in the industry has left them with some experiences that most musicians would be envious of, but it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. While previous iterations of the group started as a positive entity, they unfortunately harboured negativity as most other groups have yet failed to move past it into something healthy, leaving people that were once family as nothing more than acquaintances. Lyrically, Woodford used this as an opportunity to be able to get some of the pressure and stress that comes with a lineup change off his chest and push forward through the turmoil, using the change for good and to better the band. “I’m a strong believer now that I think if, if you can turn negatives into positives, you can build something really, really special.”
Most bands simply don’t get the opportunity to rewrite their own history and dictate their future in the way that POLAR has; a fact that definitely isn’t lost on them or on Woodford. He speaks incredibly highly of his new bandmates and the fact that they have each stepped up into their roles and helped him to restore the band back to its former positive glory. They’ve not dwelled on the change and not allowed themselves to fall into a slump as most bands do. Instead, they have pushed through the change and come out on the other side as victors. Their first appearance as the new lineup was in front of over 60,000 people and “everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong,” yet they still didn’t let this get to them. It made them bigger and stronger, learning from their mistakes and leaving them with the knowledge of how to deal with these situations that they may have previously dealt with negatively, and turning it into a learning experience.
In the fifteen years that POLAR has been active, we have seen so many changes not just from the group but from the industry itself – from the rise of streaming and the decline of physical media to the takeover of social media content and online engagement. “The music industry is an education itself,” begins Woodford. “It’s not your normal industry, it’s all built on maybes and there’s no certainties. But when something feels good, you should follow that feeling.”
What may seem like ‘just another song’ for some people is something lifechanging for many others and this fact is not lost on Woodford. Spurred forward by the knowledge that music helps save the lives of fans and musicians alike, he has managed to surround himself with the right people in POLAR so that they can carry on with this extremely important role they are burdened with. The job of a musician is never certain and could easily all end tomorrow, yet POLAR has persevered through this knowledge and the setbacks that they have faced in the last fifteen years and come out the other side as an entirely different, positive thinking band and with a new album that echoes all of these sentiments back to their dedicated audiences.
Five Arrows is out now via Arising Empire.
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