Sydney rock outfit RedHook have been making a nuisance of themselves all over the world in recent years, playing with The Smashing Pumpkins and Janes Addiction as part of The World Is A Vampire Tour and at Good Things Festival alongside Bring Me The Horizon, Gojira, Soulfly, Jinjer and more in their home country, as well as international festivals Rock AM Ring, Download and others.
Their relentless touring schedule and work ethic is showing dividends, with debut album Postcards From A Living Hell (2023) asserting the band's authority after a six-year wait, setting RedHook up for the next phase of their career which gained traction last Friday with the release of their sophomore album Mutation.
"Mutation is an audacious, genre-bending second album that is unblinking in its lyrical honesty, ambitious sonic production, and infectiously memorable songwriting, read the press release. "Incorporating influences ranging from alt-pop, future bass and hip-hop to metal, punk and post-hardcore, RedHook are wholly unafraid to be uniquely themselves, combining layers of intricate synths, brass, heavy guitars, samples and dynamic drum work to create an intoxicating 11-track cocktail that hits like a Molotov.'
Put simply, it is a step-up in everything RedHook is known and loved for, and then some.
To celebrate the album's release, HEAVY recently conducted a video review/interview with vocalist Emmy Mack where we read the interview out to her track by track and ask if we are on the right path and find out more about each song. It offers a unique glimpse into the music from the perspective of the people who wrote it.
Check out what Emmy had to say about the track Breaking Up With.
"I love that, nailed it!" she smiled at HEAVY's assessment of the song. "I suppose that song is very mischievous (laughs). Breaking Up With to me… I always see it as kind of either a sequel, or I guess it's the antithesis to Bad Decisions, which is our biggest song. I was in a very different headspace when I wrote that song, and Bad Decisions is revelling in feeling like a complete and utter piece of shit. Breaking Up with is more about being like, you know what, I'm not going to do that any more. I'm gonna be nicer to myself, so breaking that cycle of self-loathing and self-destructive behaviour and be less of a shit cu%t (laughs)."
Watch/listen to the full interview to go into Mutation deeper than ever before.