The Breathing Process: Lightning Can Strike Twice

THE BREATHING PROCESS are considered as one of the OGs of the initial deathcore movement back in the early 00s. They were one of the first in their field to introduce orchestral elements into their offerings, something which has been adopted to great effect by many who have come onto the scene since their arrival. After an eight year gap between releases the outfit made an emphatic return with 2018’s Samsara album, welcomed back with a rapturous applause. Now they are firmly back in the game it was time to kick it up a notch with their follow-up entitled Labyrinthian.

“With Samsara I think it was just us re-establishing ourselves a bit, we hadn’t released anything in a while and we’d kind of just taken a break from being in a band in general. Adding the new members made a big difference and we’ve all really grown as musicians and songwriters and I think that’s evident in this new album. I think a lot of people will be both happy and surprised by this release,” explains guitarist and founding member Jordan Miller. “We haven’t changed a lot about our sound but we’ve just got a lot better at it. We spent about a year and a half just in pre-production, writing songs, recording them, erasing them, tearing them apart and building them all back together. If we had more time we’d probably still be writing it now. Thankfully deadlines exist! It’s definitely the best output that we’ve had as a band thus far. It’s been quite interesting as we’re from a different kind of era of deathcore so to see people discovering our band now and seeing we can handle ourselves against what is currently out has been really good for us.”

On the surface it may look like THE BREATHING PROCESS have went through a lot of uncertainty with their lineup, Jordan is keen to dispel this misconception. “The core of the band has always been the same. We’ve had a few lineup changes over the years but one of the big misconceptions is that on some websites a lot of people were stated as members of the band but they were literally just filling in for a show. We have a new vocalist this time round but Chris is the first vocalist where we feel he really fits our style and the music we want to create.”

Labyrinthian was a progression for the band in many areas, particularly in the song-writing department. They really seem to have found their stride this time round. “Samara was basically just written on a computer, this time around we spent a lot more time together in the rehearsal room,” informs Jordan. “At first it took me a while to get acclimatised to that as I’m so used to just writing alone with drum programmes and stuff. Writing organically takes a bit more time and care but because of that approach, it really allowed us to comb through each section until we could make the songs as good as they could possibly be and everyone got to contribute.”

To up the ante even further on this release THE BREATHING PROCESS acquired the services of some special guests to add a bit of extra venom to proceedings. “We’ve known the guys in SIGNS OF THE SWARM for a long time as they’re from Pittsburgh too,” discusses Jordan. “Dave was just the easiest collaboration as we sent him a message and he just turned up to the studio. We had a pre-production demo of the song we wanted him to guest on and it was very much bare bones with the tempo maps done so we could slot it in when the final recording was done. Chris and Dave were just sat there like whisper screaming ideas at each other which was quite funny without music. I’ve known Jamie Graham since like 2007 as he actually has us signed to Siege Of Amida. We’ve wanted to do a song with him forever because I love his voice and the projects he’s done. We literally sent him the song and got it back within a week. Personally it’s my favourite song on the album! It’s been great to continue that relationship into Unique Leader. Lightning really did strike twice. We just sent him a couple of demos and he signed us up!”

Labyrinthian is out now via Unique Leader Records.

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