Shrapnel: The Chapter Of The Insane

2020 has been a very daunting time for musicians with a lot of touring and promotional opportunities being thrown into disarray and there is no telling when what we deem to be normality to be resumed. UK thrashers SHRAPNEL had a pretty busy schedule planned for the year in the follow up to the release of their latest effort Palace For The Insane but guitarist Chris Martin and company have managed to take this in their stride.

“I think I’ve been busier in lockdown than I am normally!” jokes Chris. “We did the livestreams to kind of keep in the public eye a little bit and stay connected and have had a good bit of interaction from them but at times it is difficult to gauge whether everyone is going to care or be fully engaged to watch us chat for an hour or something. We cannot wait to get out on the road again but it’s been kind of nice to engage with an audience in a different way. We are releasing another video which has been filmed entirely during lockdown as we couldn’t go out and do any of the things we planned for it. The limitations has actually made it way more creative and I’m probably happier with it now than the idea we originally had! We’re in quite a nice position now too where we can play as much as we’re allowed to. Rehearsals are obviously difficult right now but we’re staying on top of our chops as much as we can and we’re going to plan out a new setlist so the new material will be up to scratch when the time is right.”

Palace Of The Insane sees a bit of a shake up in the ranks of the band. Longtime frontman Jae departed the band at the back end of 2019 which for most bands would’ve been a major stumbling block. However, SHRAPNEL have managed to face this adversity head on and bounce back with arguably their best release to date. “It was way too easy actually,” admits Chris. “When Jae announced he was stepping down it was expected and he’d been going through a bit of a rough patch so it was important for him to do that. We respected his decision but there is always the thought that lingers when a frontman leaves of ‘can we still do this?’ Aaron had already been playing guitar for us, he was filling in for me actually because I was living abroad and there were some shows I couldn’t make it back to. He knew the songs and we knew that he was a frontman in a local thrash band so we know he could do it. We know he was a good frontman and we also needed a bass player at the time. We had to convince him to do it as the first time we asked him he said no! Mainly because he’s not originally a bass player so and he wasn’t keen on being a bass player. We managed to persuade him and he kind of warmed to the idea as we were beginning work on the new album and had some cool shows coming up. As soon as he said yes everything just took off and was super easy.”

As well as a refreshed lineup the quartet decided to take a different mentality into the approach of this release. “Raised on Decay was quite hard to get into for a lot of people and we were taking our inspiration for our writing from some of the more obscure and extreme metal bands out there. We love that album but in some senses it didn’t really pay off for us,” admits Chris. “With this new one we have kind of shifted back to the bands that got us into metal in the first place and it’s definitely an album which you can listen to more than once and want to go back to. There is a lot of the kind of standard SHRAPNEL trademark in there but we have definitely tried to be a bit more creative with this one. We take our inspirations from a lot of different places and this time there is stuff we’ve never done before and it might surprise some people. It’s easier to listen to than the last album. There’s a lot more that will make it feel more accessible to fans of less extreme metal.”

Continuing, he adds, “our lead guitarist, Nathan has written most of the music in the past, probably about 90% of the music overall for SHRAPNEL! This time round we were able to collaborate a lot more. The amount of ideas and songs we had was nuts. I was pretty much responsible for all the lyrics up until the new album but Aaron stepped in and wanted to get involved so he did the vast majority of the lyrics on this one and we worked together to kind of fix them up and get them spot on. This one was way more fun because we all did it together and that was something that was missing on the last album. Aaron can do a bit more with his voice too so we were able to incorporate a bit more melody into things as he was comfortable with that style. We’ve been able to utilise that and try some new things vocally which we’ve considered in the past but never really been able to”.

Despite SHRAPNEL blazing a trail and proudly flying the flag for British thrash metal for over a decade they still fly under some peoples radars and they are determined to broaden their reach going forward and usher the band into a new and exciting chapter. “A lot of people still don’t have a clue who we are,” states Chris. “We’re really proud of this album and things are going very well for us at the moment. We want to be able to book ahead and get shows planned as soon as possible but we don’t know what will happen towards the end of the year and start of next year. Stay safe and take this opportunity to listen to music as much as you can!”

Palace For The Insane is out now via Candlelight Records.

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