Sentinels: Complex By Design

New Jersey metalcore outfit SENTINELS were in the middle of recording their debut album Collapse By Design when a fairly large spanner was thrown in the works; their then-vocalist opted to leave the band, leaving them high and dry. Fortunately, they were put in contact with Josh Hardiman who was recommended to them; fast-forward to now as we catch up with Josh to talk about coming in partway through the process as well as discovering their sound, pushing themselves and what it means to be a part of the band and their label, SharpTone Records.

“I’m very excited! It’s a life-changing event man, so it’s not without its anxiety and distress, but there’s a lot more good than bad going on,” he explains as we ask whether he’s excited for the album they’ve been sat on for eighteen months now to make its way into the world. The band themselves had released a few EPs over their first few years prior to Collapse By Design; they did have one of their EPs marked out as a debut originally, but in his words, “everyone’s grateful that it didn’t work out that way. So, you know, Collapse By Design can be that full-length debut because it very much deserves that.”

Although he was involved in the recording process for it, the album itself was written by the time he joined the band and as such didn’t get to have too much input into the actual shaping of the songs. That’s no bad thing for him though, in this case. “I had like, all the lyrics and patterns. I may have changed a word or two but that’s really it. But I had a lot of freedom with respect to tonality, how it was actually going to sound on the record. I had Dave [Rucki, drums] and Randy [LeBoeuf, producer] standing right next to me and like, coaching me and it was a group decision for the most part on everything. We never butted heads on anything really,” he explains.

Even without the creative input of writing, his stamp is very much on this record with his vocals being a focal point of the technical, metallic assault on display. It’s a record whose technicality belies its depth, both sonically and thematically. Its overall story is one of moving from darkness into light; “where we’re going from a place of inertia, being about suicide, you know like not wanting to continue living. And from Dave’s mouth, only really living to appease those around you and ending on Atlas where there’s this sense of, I’m going to go beyond. I’m going to transcend my shortcomings and become something different than what I am.”

This journey is also reflected in the album’s striking artwork; there’s an image of emerging from darkness, the figure facing towards the light and seeming to be preparing to move towards it. That’s something that with LP2 – that they’re already working on ideas for – could come full circle. As Josh puts it he’s been playing around with “ideas of doing that archetype in reverse; in just essentially completing the circle. We go from dark to light then from light and back to dark and such is life. Nothing is ever linear, it’s always an ebb and flow of waves, troughs to peaks. So I’ve played around with that idea.”

The way they manifest this is through their own take on progressive metalcore; at once with similarities to bands from that scene’s rise to prominence through Basick Records and bands like CIRCLES or ALIASES but also with plenty of new flourishes that makes it distinctly their own, like the atonal flourishes of Tyrant. His initial assessment of this is a gentle ribbing of his bandmates; “Chris [Dombrowski, guitars] just writes crazy shit, man!” he exclaims. It’s densely layered without being impenetrable and he freely admits to still discovering new things on repeat listens. “Sometimes for whatever reason we’ll have the stems out and just be listening to [them] and honestly like, I notice something I never knew that was there. And then I’ll hear it in the tracks like, now that I know it’s there, the track would sound completely different without it.” It’s this sense of discovery and wonder that he hopes people take from the album. There’s so much going on, so many layers to its technicality that he feels “you have to listen to it a few times to really start piecing everything together and seeing the genius start to reveal itself.”

Collapse By Design is very much as he describes; a texturally and sonically dense album that rewards repeat listens and reveals new moments and aspects with each listen. The themes of darkness into light are reflected through the lyrics, the artwork, even the shifting ambience throughout that sits just underneath on every track and creates a distinct atmosphere that changes and evolves throughout. It’s clear the band have lofty ambitions; this album, as well as the backing of respected label SharpTone Records, should see them achieve big things.

Collapse By Design is out now via SharpTone Records. 

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