There’s something deeply unsettling and instantly striking about Vancouver’s DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. Their brand-new LP, Tragedy as Catharsis, is a turbulent 13-track exploration of screamo / emoviolence, channeling chaos with surgical precision. We sat down with the band to dive deeper into their craft and give you some more details about their process, through a special track by track commentary and more commentary below.
Recorded live off the floor by Hieg Khatcherian, mixed and mastered by Will Killingsworth at Dead Air, and featuring haunting artwork by bassist Jens Ulrich, this release digs into the core of anguish, isolation, and transformation.
Drawing inspiration from bands like ORCHID, JEROMES DREAM, and BLIND GIRLS, the trio refines their ferocity into our favorite type of bleak screamo soundscape that balances breakneck chaos with rare, deliberate quiet moments.
The DIY aesthetic of the production—performed live and raw—underscores their authenticity. Each track lurches between blistering riffs and suffocating tension, reflecting the emotional turmoil embedded in their harsh take on this already gritty inception of post hardcore.
The album is available in vinyl form through No Funeral Records and cassette via Middle Man Records, with digital versions released on November 5, 2024.
Fronting vocalist Jens Ulrich delves deep into personal struggles throughout Tragedy as Catharsis, weaving a cohesive yet abstract narrative across the album. Each song reflects a specific emotional or psychological struggle—guilt, regret, isolation, fear, and anger—through imagery steeped in fantasy and gothic influences.
Drive Your Plow Over The Bones of The Dead!!! pic.twitter.com/oE5kaC2EpW
— sunny jay real estate (@cleaming_) November 16, 2024
“In writing the lyrics, I tried to focus on a single theme for each song and then write to that theme.” – Jens shared.
“I tried to explore these themes mostly through the atmosphere and imagery rather than with direct or unambiguous lyrics. I tend to prefer lyrics (or books or movies) that create a strong and cohesive tone or setting, even if there isn’t necessarily a clear narrative, and I’ve tried to do that here as best as possible. At the time when I wrote most of the lyrics I was reading in particular the book Toll the Hounds by Steven Erikson.”
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“This is a fantasy book that focuses on processes grief, death and also on redemption. This book has a darker to qwerwerne with a style that incorporated different elements of fantasy, horror, gothic and tragic writing. I think this book made big impression on me, and a lot of that tone probably seeped into my approach to the lyrics. I read a lot of fantasy in general and used a lot of that imagery or style throughout the lyrics. I think that approach was helpful for exploring my inner struggles in a way that’s less implicit and leaves the album more open to interpretation.”
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Kyle, Jens’ bandmate, contributed additional vocals, aiming to maintain the album’s overarching cohesion.
“Generally, I wrote my lyrics down and then Kyle filled in his additional vocals, trying to keep the tone as cohesive as possible. On the lyric insert sheet, my lyrics are unbracketed and Kyle’s additional lyrics are the ones contained in the “[insert lyrics]” brackets.”
“I realize the tone of the album is pretty dim throughout. I do hope there’s some optimism that comes through in terms of the processing and reflection that takes place within the album as being a part of a transformative personal journey. I do actually feel like I’m in a pretty decent place in my life right now and I think that’s in part due to working on processing these negative emotions.” – says Jens.
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Jens also hopes the dim tone of the album serves a purpose. “The tone is dark throughout, but there’s optimism in the processing and reflection. It’s been a transformative personal journey.”
Jens, who also created the album art, described the visual concept.
“This is a somewhat abstracted (made-up) landscape that I sketched out. I first painted it in watercolour and then scanned it to my computer and transformed it into black versus background. I mostly grew up in western Washington state but I lived in eastern Washington a bit and visited over there pretty frequently.”
To Jens, this landscape feels reminiscent of those landscapes in eastern Washington and how they look and feel during the winter time.
“It’s really different from the west side of the state, the landscapes are more open. I think this can give an air of isolation and coldness but also clarity and purification. I think those aspects really resonated with the tone of the album and made it a good choice for the cover art. I like the simplicity and focus of a simple two colour album art (same as I did for our 2023 demo) so that’s why I ended up transforming the landscape painting into black versus background. We tried swapping in a couple of different colours for the background, but the coolness and low saturation in the pale lavender colour seemed to fit the tone the best.”
The simple two-color scheme emphasizes the stark tone of the album.
Inside the record, Jens included symbolic imagery such as a crow perched on a skull—drawn from Basil Valentine’s 15th-century work L’azoth des Philosophes. “It represents the beginning of purification,” he said. Additional elements like a key, a ring, and a flower further tie into the album’s themes of transformation and catharsis.
“On the back of the physical record itself I did a redrawing of crow perched on a skull. The original artwork is from Basil Valentine’s “L’azoth des philosophes” which I believe was written in the 15th century. In the original context, the crow and the skull represent the beginning of purification, which I felt fit well with the emotional weight of the album centering on purging and catharsis (through exploring and processing the different themes in each song).”
“There’s some associated imagery that I came up with and added to the lyrics sheet inside: a key, a ring and a flower – things that hold some relationship to purification. The flip side of the insert sheet is a close-up drawing of pond water lapping up against some rocks. I just think it looks neat to have something small like that magnified up. Looking at it in real life it’s a pretty calm scene, but the magnification of the little pond stones gives it a grander and more tempestuous impression.”
Asked about their local favourites, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD gave us a quick list of under the radar bands worth a solid check.
emma goldman
Best band in screamo right now
jisei
Incredible trans cybergrind.
filigree silvergod
Brand new screamo band (no released music yet)
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lord wrought
Amazing blackened hardcore/screamo! [see IDIOTEQ feature HERE]
Tragedy As Catharsis track by track rundown:
Words by Jens
spirit incantation
This song is really about reconciling guilt. I find myself feeling super bogged down with these feelings a lot. I grew up in a very religious environment. To some degree, I think this has over-conditioned me towards a bit of a default state of blame or wrongness when negative things are happening to me or around me. That culpability or personal responsibility is really drilled into me. I think this underlies a lot of anxiety in my day to day.
At the same time, some amount of guilt and regret can be a good thing in terms of learning from mistakes and creating a better future, improvement and redemption, etc.. But I think there needs to be a balance between two ends of the spectrum – being saddled with guilt and regret about everything versus always letting things go. I’m not sure if I have any answers as to where that balance lies, but I was using this song to process some of those internal conflicts.
Glimmer fate
The lyrics for this song really focus on wanting some relief from all of the negative emotions expressed throughout all of the songs on the album, although written in a bit more of an abstract way. In real life, some of this relief has come to me through the opportunity to make this music. Making heavy music and being able to scream out all of the negative things I’m feeling, and to do that with other people is a really cathartic experience.
I’m sure most people making or listening to similar music can relate to that. This is what I meant with the album title. By no means is this a new or original idea. This is sort of a central part of ancient Greek tragedy. That there’s a collective purging of emotions enable by art that explore these types of themes. I came up with the title of the album after going back through all of the songs and reflecting on what creating and playing these songs means to me.
The title for this song is one that is directly taken from some other source. We added the official song titles only when we started the process of recording them. At that time, I was reading another of Steven Erikson’s books, Forge of Darkness. Within the book, ‘Glimmer Fate’ refers to this distant outlying region, where the focal point is a lake or sea of some sort of ambiguous liquid.
The liquid is something chaotic and dangerous but at the same time it serves as a sort of creative force that drives some of the major plot points in the story. I just liked the idea of this lake of chaotic but transformative substance and so I decided to borrow that for the song title here.
Etchings:
This song is short and for me was mostly a release of anger and frustration. The lyrics focus on looking closely at a painting, where you can see the physical ridges and etchings made by brush marks. I was imagining running my nails through those surfaces as a sort of destructive act. In a way this song is circling back to low self worth and imposter syndrome. I often feel pretty unsatisfied with myself whether that’s in music or other art or work stuff. There’s this latent urge to tear apart the things I’m doing or making.
Perish song
This song focuses on feeling trapped or stuck. There’s a mix of imagery about being caught in a stick snare and then, later, a fading away of the body.
A deeper shade of night:
My lyrics on this song focus on despair and isolation, and looking for some ways out of that. This is approached through the idea of sitting around a table set with broken fixtures.
Spiteful enemy:
This song centers around being plagued by past choices – as in my past self being a spiteful enemy that’s making my current self suffer. And then wanting a fresh start or escape from that past self.
Suzerain:
This song focuses on looming death, and asking for more time or a way to stay connected despite that. Some of the imagery comes from a haunted place in the area where I grew up, starvation heights in Washington. In the early 1900’s it was a sanitarium. People went out there seeking treatment for different medical issues but sadly ended up being isolated and then starved to death.
Malediction:
This was the first song we wrote as a band. We didn’t end up recording it for the demo, but afterwards revisited it and gave it a lift from the instrument side. I’m really glad we were still able to put this song out in the end, and also that we were able to give it the treatment I think it deserved rather than recording the original version.
The ending of this song is a great place where Kyle’s vocals come in clearly and provide more of a counterpoint to my delivery.
The lyrics for me focus on fear and isolation.
Ritual symmetry
This song is about coming to some realizations, coming to a better understanding of yourself and your place in the world but not necessarily knowing what to do with that. I was rereading The Awakening while writing the lyrics for this song. I related a lot to the main character’s conflicting feelings at the climax of the book.
The character goes through this emergence, a transformation, but this also ends with feelings of burden and lack of control. My aim was to explore this a little further with this song.
Blood Astronomy
The shortest song, this is a brief plea for clarity and calm.
Arrangement
This song is really focusing on low self worth, feeling unclean or sinful. This is somewhat revisiting the theme of the first song. Sometimes I’m feeling awful about myself and this is just venting a lot of that.
The structure of the ending of this song worked well with the vocal delivery. The bass line is pretty much straightforward and not too fast so I can kind of forget about the instrument and let loose vocally and emotionally on this one.
Meadow Rue
This song is focusing on self-doubt. This grows into a perception that the future is cursed or doomed. This is a mix of a sense of personal failure combined with feeling powerless against the broader structures of the world.
Baleful Solitude
This song focuses on transformation or purification, but also the pain and isolation that can come with that process.
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