Interview by Kris Peters
Rising Sydney metalcore outfit Broken Earth continue to push sonic boundaries and upping the anti significantly with each release.
Following the success of last years single Black Skies, Broken Earth last week delivered the crushingly brutal track Breathe, raising the bar considerably and laying down a bold statement of intent.
A tale of discontent and dealing with traumatic experiences, Breathe aims up against the poisonous elements of society in a scathing indictment of unbridled aggression that point the finger directly where it should be directed.
Vocalist Raphael Smith joined HEAVY recently to talk us through the new single and how it reflects Broken Earth in 2023.
"It actually started out life when I had just seen the Christopher Nolan movie Tenet in the movies in 2019," he began. "I got home and wrote this really sick synth line but it never really connected and I think it had the most amount of rewrites out of everything that we're releasing this year. What happened was I kept wanting to put a sing a long chorus into it and it just wasn't connecting for some reason. One of the boys came to me and said vocally you're really aggressive in the verses but whenever we go to the chorus the vibe dips down straight away. I know you love your sing a long choruses, but I don't know if it's gonna work this time. I said, you know what dude, let's go for it so about a week before we were supposed to record we actually rewrote basically the entire chorus and when we got into the studio with Mark he helped us rewrite a bit of it as well to give it that final touch and edge. But it's actually... it's the first song we're putting out and it sounds very organic and balls to the wall but it was the most obsessed over and refined song of the lot."
In the full interview, Raph talks more about the musical side of Breathe, dives deeper into the meaning behind the track, how it represents the growth of the band, upcoming music, their recent Tamworth experience and more.