Pupil Slicer: Keep The Listener Guessing
“Let’s just write an album and play whatever the hell we want” is how PUPIL SLICER vocalist/guitarist Kate Davies describes the conversation that birthed the band’s debut record Mirrors. As we speak, the London-based trio are gearing up to let loose the rabid attack dog that is their first full-length, and ‘play whatever the hell we want’ just about sums it up. Broadly and perhaps best described as mathcore, that’s just the start. As well as that, there’s a grindy violence which is surely a product of the band’s early days of CARCASS worship, there’s the odd touch of DEAFHEAVEN-esque post-black metal, and more.
“We had the approach of not really putting any limits on what we’d want to sound like, just play music that we’d wanna play, and I think that comes across. There’s quite a variety on the album” says Davies. For her, it’s an approach heavily inspired by the likes of CONVERGE and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN, two bands with whom PUPIL SLICER definitely share a chaotic, creative intensity. “Those bands don’t really pigeonhole themselves, they go off doing whatever. So I think that’s a really nice approach to it, as long as you can have little elements that make it feel consistent throughout everything so you can tell it’s the same band, but always keep the listener guessing.”
One of those consistent elements on Mirrors is Davies’ own performance as a vocalist and lyricist. These add a captivating and often emotional quality to the record, but according to Davies, they’re two roles she hadn’t planned on occupying. After their former vocalist pulled out just days before the band’s third gig, she didn’t have much choice. “I was like ‘I can’t find anyone else to do them.’ So I just sat in my room and practiced really hard to try and learn to play the guitar and sing them at the same time over like three days. I couldn’t even do harsh vocals! I still can’t to a degree. I’m starting lessons to do them properly because I still hurt myself doing them.”
“Then there was a period of like a year of looking for a vocalist and it was very hard to find anyone. When we did find anyone they were either incredibly unreliable or just sort of didn’t fit. They weren’t into the same sort of things we were musically and they weren’t really digging it. In the whole meantime I’d been doing vocals at every show and at that point I was just like ‘I give up searching! I’ll do it.’”
Reluctant though she may be, there’s no denying Davies has a knack for it. Mirrors is also the first PUPIL SLICER to feature her own lyrics, many of which are deeply personal. For Davies, this was daunting at times. “While I was doing it I was like ‘this is sick.’ Then there was a period where I was like ‘I don’t want people to hear this. This is too much.’ And then I was like ‘no-one’s gonna be able to tell what I’m saying anyway.’”
She adds: “I did try and write in such a way that whilst it is very personal, I don’t want it to be specific so that people can get their own meanings out of it. I think the emotional quality of it is the most important thing and less the actual words specifically. They have a meaning to me but I’m not gonna go super in depth and explain what that is to someone else if they can get that emotional response out of it.”
Perhaps the most personal song for Davies is the album’s staggering closer, Collective Unconscious – a track which ends with her breaking down into literal cries of anguish. “That song was like pretty much one take I think. There were two takes at the start of it and then past a minute the rest of it was just one take and I was just like that’s the one. I think that song’s the most emotional for me personally and I think you can’t do that over and over and get the same kind of level of intensity. So yeah that first take was a pretty good one, I was really happy with how that came out in the end.”
Another personal track is the intriguingly-titled Mirrors Are More Fun Than Television. As with other tracks Davies isn’t too keen on telling other people what the song should mean for them, instead encouraging listeners to find their own meaning. She elaborates: “It’s from Max Payne 2. I’ve got my own meaning for it and we’ve heard a lot of funny ones, but no-ones managed to get it yet.”
As well as personal reflections, Mirrors does see Davies look beyond her own experiences to injustices and oppression around the world – something which sparks an indignant anger well-matched to PUPIL SLICER’s vicious music. “It’s funny like I’ll talk about these things but personally I hate conflict and stuff. I’d never argue with anyone over anything so maybe in that way this was my outlet for it. Like the Gay Panic Defence is the name of one of the tracks (fourth track Panic Defence) about how in America in multiple states you can kill someone and then say I didn’t know they were gay and I panicked, and that’s a valid defence. And the same thing with the Trans Panic Defence… I wouldn’t go write up a think-piece about it – I couldn’t do that – but I’ve expressed how I feel about things in my own way through the music.”
One of the first things many heard from Mirrors was no doubt the album’s lead single L’Appel Du Vide, notable for the guest appearance of THE CALLOUS DAOBOYS’ Carson Pace, who recorded their parts remotely. “I sent them the lyrics and stuff and was like ‘do what you want’ and gave them the money to hire out a studio to record it quickly.” The album is also notably produced by Pedram Valiani of fellow mathcore rising stars FRONTIERER and SECTIONED. Valiani is someone Davies and co. had been keen to work with for a while: “We held off until we had this album and the whole time we’d been saying ‘when the album’s ready we’ll do that with you.’ We did in the end and it turned out fantastically.”
Davies has every right to be pleased with Mirrors. With it, the band have crafted a consistently abrasive and interesting listen whose violent edge never wears off. Going forward, PUPIL SLICER are keen to get on tour, frustrated as we all are by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. “That’s realistically not gonna be like until early next year, maybe even summer next year.” In the meantime, Davies has already made a start on a follow-up, and couldn’t be happier with the reaction Mirrors has received so far. “I’m really surprised with the reaction to the album and I’m happy people get it… I think I was worried on one hand, like I really like CONVERGE and THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN and BOTCH, and I was worried it would come off as derivative. But I think there’s enough different elements in there that make it into something new.” We couldn’t agree more.
Mirrors is out now via Prosthetic Records.
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