In January 2014, the BRAG caught up with Jake Taylor, the frontman for Byron Bay metalcore outfit In Hearts Wake. At that time things were moving along wonderfully well for the band. After releasing their debut LP Divination in August 2012, they’d picked up a massive Australian following and made headway in North America. Plus, the group’s latest single ‘Skydancer’ was perpetuating Divination’s success, and they were one of the only Australian acts invited to join last year’s Soundwave tour.
And yet, one detail seemed slightly off. When questioned about plans for In Hearts Wake’s second album, Taylor had very little to report. Fair enough, we thought – maybe they hadn’t had a chance to knuckle down on songwriting since Divination came out. But given the band’s prevailing good fortune, it seemed imprudent to delay their second record.
Oh, but what fools we were to take Taylor at his word. A mere four months after our conversation, In Hearts Wake rolled out their second LP, Earthwalker.The album’s press release pointed out that it was recorded in late 2013, which meant that Taylor’s vague nonchalance was in fact a well-executed ruse.
“I think any dog with a special bone will bury it in a special spot out in the backyard and when it’s time they’ll share it with everyone,” says a good-humoured Taylor, 12 months down the track from Earthwalker’srelease. “It’s OK to tell a white lie when it’s for the greater good of the potency of a message.”
And boy, did Earthwalker make a potent impact upon release, landing at number five in the ARIA charts and triumphantly surpassing the success of its predecessor. As a consequence, In Hearts Wake started playing bigger headline shows and their overseas profile expanded greatly, which suggested their next album would be a long way off. But as it turned out, the full details of the band’s white lie were yet to be exposed. At the start of this month – bang on a year since Earthwalker’s unexpected arrival – In Hearts Wake delivered their third LP and Earthwalker companion effort, Skydancer.
The back-to-back releases weren’t just recorded at the same time, but they come together conceptually as well. “I’ve got a knack for always being very ambitious with things,” Taylor says. “Whether or not I pull them off, it’s up to the world to decide. But it wouldn’t feel fit to release a record that was just a collection of songs. It really needed a focus, just an anchor point. You go to so much effort with all of this – from interviews to film clips to photo shoots to touring the world – so the concept provided motivation for us to really want to get this done, not just for ourselves but for the world and for our fans.”
Divination was also a concept album, with each track centred on a separate card in the Major Arcana Tarot deck – giving rise to songs such as ‘Departure (Death)’, ‘The Unknown (Strength)’ and ‘Shapeless (Judgement)’. So while In Hearts Wake were eager to capitalise on the success of their debut,the chief concern was with how they would advance artistically.
“There was a need to not just produce a product, but we had music flowing from us,” says Taylor. “We really wanted to get that down and get it out there. That was the motivation behind getting [these albums] together without taking time off. We were so dedicated to this cause and to really pushing as far as we could. It was a great achievement and it showed us that if we can do that, then who knows what else is possible?”
Indeed, one-upping an album like Divination was always going to be a tough ask, but Taylor’s ambitious streak encouraged him to tackle an even more elaborate concept. Put simply, Earthwalker is entirely focused around femininity, while Skydancer takes an in-depth look at masculinity. But wait, there’s more: rather than producing two distinct and separate entities, the albums link together to portray the complementary relationship between Mother Earth and Father Sky.
“They’re identified as mother and father because they’re two common energies we can all relate to in our lives,” Taylor says. “Everyone has been created from a mother and father, and that’s why I think in native cultures there’s Mother Earth and Father Sky. Part of respecting those two energies is that you wouldn’t want to inflict pain upon your mother or your father and you therefore gain respect and love for both.”
With these two records, In Hearts Wake have managed to address an exceptionally comprehensive theme while also presenting it in a cohesive manner. This seemingly hair-tearing task was made a little easier by the fact they didn’t need to divert from their regular method of composition.
“We always write for diversity,” says Taylor. “So Ben [Nairne, guitar] won’t write a very melodic song with lots of clean parts and then follow it up with the next song being almost in the same formula. He’ll always change it up and say, ‘I want to write a really ridiculously heavy song right now.’ Obviously, the really heavy, more downbeat, hard, structurally rigid songs would be a lot less unpredictable. That to me would just go into the male category straight away.
“When it came to dividing the two albums, there were a couple of grey area moments, but for the most part I really felt a masculine vibe or a feminine vibe and so did the other guys.”
Now, describing Skydancer as a sequence of songs rooted in masculinity might suggest that it’s a crude display of macho brutality. But while the record does encompass tough themes and dangerous energies, it’s not a flat-out primal splattering. “I was looking at [masculinity] more from a worldly perspective, covering racism, war – much broader topics,” says Taylor. “With that stuff, it’s hard to talk about it and bring awareness to it without slandering.
“Certain songs sparked certain topics or things in my life that I was wanting to share or speak about lyrically. I didn’t feel like I was looking down a list of topics and going, ‘I’m going to go with that one.’ The song really spoke to me with what needed to be said.”
Similarly, Earthwalker isn’t a clichéd, vulgar exposition of femininity. Curiously enough, Taylor says writing from a feminine perspective posed fewer difficulties. “They were much more personal topics, subjective stuff, so I could really home in on the things that were close at hand and right here on Earth. I find the personal stuff is easier to really sink my teeth into.”
On the subject of personal relevance, while In Hearts Wake’s double concept album project might sound rather complex and abstract, when it comes to accessibility, these are near-matchless topics.
“You look at any individual and the basis of any of their issues or problems will, 95 per cent of the time, stem from something that has happened in their upbringing – from their parents,” Taylor says. “That’s what I really wanted to draw attention to with the different energies, and show how different they are. However, in saying that, it’s important to know that in order to make a whole child or to create anything, it has to have a harmony and a balance of both.”
Skydancer is available now through UNFD. In Hearts Wake playUNSW Roundhouse with We Came As Romans, Beartooth and Storm The Sky onSaturday May 30.
