AD MELIORA is an alternative-rock Band formed in Stockholm in 2019 with experienced musicians coming from Spain, Italy and Canary Islands. Their sound dance in between alternative, post/rock with some groovy elements and math vibes, all of that wrapped with the love from the hardcore scene from which all the members comes from. Impactul, melodic, introspective, furious but beautiful with highly catchy chorus.
Whilst new and original it’s a sound that keeps the familiarity that warmly welcomes you until you cannot stop listening. Today, we’re pleased to give you their new single “Escaping Forward”, taken from their upcoming EP “The Void, The Time, The Path”!
It is not easy to label the band’s sound. “We all come from a hardcore/metal background so we definitely have heavy stuff, but in Ad Meliora we also tried not to stick to a particular formula and try to combine our influences with a more accessible approach.” – they comment.
Guitars ranging from furious distorted tones to cleans with lots of reverb and delay to create dreamy textures. Bass looking for harmonization when needed (don´t look here for a bass just following guitars), but being also able to stick together with the drums to deliver powerful breakdowns and rhythmic sections. Powerful and precise drumming being the glue putting everything together. And vocals that can deliver from a catchy chorus to powerful screams.
“Combine that with some odd time signature every now and then to keep everything interesting and you could be able to imagine a bit of our sound.” concludes the band.
Ad Meliora – history of the band:
“We can say Ad Meliora was born in Italy and Spain. Pablo, Abby and Sergio played together in a few bands of the metal/hardcore underground scene in Madrid and Paolo did the same in Italy.
A few years later life put us all in Stockholm and magic happened.
Since the very first rehearsal, during a weirdly hot day in the swedish 2019 summer, we felt an immediate connection between us thanks to our similar music background and the cultures we come from.
One important part of the band is our latin origin and we think that played a very important role in how well we fit together, not only music wise but as a group of friends. This has inspired for example our band name, which means towards better things in latin, or the idea of using our own languages for the lyrics of some songs.
Things evolved pretty naturally and we had in a few months a bunch of songs we were ready to record and promote.
Then the pandemic exploded leaving us facing a totally new and unexpected situation as musicians. No live gigs, no stages to step on as we were used to do.
We decided then to focus on the recording of our very first EP. Time was not a problem so we could take care of everything. “The Void, The Time, The Path” is a real “self-made” product, from record/mixing/mastering, to design and promotion.
Still we kept producing new material and shaping new songs that we hope will see the light soon.
Not playing live is quite a struggle, the flood of energy packed in the rehearsal room is amazing and is definitely looking for a way to come out.
Luckily a few days ago we were able to step in in Lidingö Rock! festival and do a 30 min livestream where we could release all our energy. It was weird to play just with a few cameras in the room and no people. We were unsure of the result but we ended up having astonishing feedback from the listeners and being one of the most followed and commented events during this corona times. We could not have a better beginning and that is super exciting!”
Asked about the future, the band adds: “We are releasing “The Void, The Time, The Path” on April 14th and we are ready to rock whenever the chance comes. We are eager to go out on tour so we are already looking for venues where we can play once the pandemic situation gets more controlled. We can also say that we already have a bunch of new songs waiting to get shape so there will definitely be more surprises besides the EP in the months to come.”
To help people understand what they can expect of the band, we asked the band to compile a list of 12 albums that have influenced them in this project. Here’s what we got:
- Norma Jean – The Anti-Mother
- Nirvana – Incesticide
- …And You Will Know Us by The Trail of Dead – Source Tags & Codes
- Glassjaw – Everything you Need to Know About Silence
- Rage Against the Machine – Evil Empire
- At the Drive in – Relationship of Command
- Saosin – Saosin
- A Perfect Circle – Thirteenth Step
- Deftones – Around the Fur
- Supertramp – Crime of the century
- Gallows – Gray Britain
- Violadores del Verso – Vicios y Virtudes
The Void, The Time, The Path
Notes about the new EP, by AD MELIORA:
‘If we had to describe “The Void, The Time, The Path” in a single word, that would be change.
We all came to Sweden looking for a brighter future and we had the amazing luck to find each other and that is something we wanted to show in our first work.
The main topic around the EP is inspired by situations, feelings and thoughts derived from a process like this. The uncertainty of what the future will bring you or the ups and downs you can find along the way are key elements that inspired the lyrics written by our singer Pablo.
Different topics are reviewed always from the point of view of positive change, being our first song “Escaping forward” the best example of it.
This song is a literal reflection of our journey to the north, where determination and thriving mindset were the key factors to make it possible. The song also explores the weight that the distance from home gives and the sad origin that the idea of moving comes from, but it is definitely a shout out to evolve and take the risk for the things you want.
From there we jump to “The Hour of Z”, where we reflect about the contradiction between the way of raising new generations to over protect them against the ongoing trend of decay that society is facing.
Our 3rd song, “Gigante roja” is as you can see written in spanish, one of our mother tongues. It explores the limits of society, about how long we will keep looking aside, while injustice is going on at our doorsteps, even if it means that we are the ones losing because of it.
This one faces the listener against an urge to change society and be aware that there are other ways to do things if we all work in the same direction.
In “10am”, we talk about hitting rock bottom and finally realizing that we need a change and that seeking for the support of your close ones is the way to go. It explores the feelings of desperation and darkness you experiment while being down and portraits the moment of realization when realizing that there is no other path available when you are at the bottom than going back up.
Finally and to close our EP, we find “Doomsday Celebration”. This song is a satire where, in a heavily ironic tone, we describe a party that is happening on the last day of the world, because, Hey! if we did not care until then, why should we do it when it is already too late…
We decided to go with a fully DIY approach, so we recorded everything at home and we produced it ourselves, with the help of our guitar Sergio who was in charge of the mixing and mastering.
Also the album artwork and band image were mainly done by our bass player Abby with some small help from our singer Pablo, while our drummer Paolo has been actively working on the promotion of the EP release.
So we can say it has been a long way and a tremendous amount of work but we are really proud of it.”
Ad Meliora are: Pablo – Vocals, Sergio – Guitars, Abby – Bass, Paolo – Drums
