Long before “This Room Could Be Heaven” was lined up as ZBR400, before the pre-orders and the sold-out splatter variant, Concealer were sitting in Justin’s living room in Orlando writing until four or five in the morning, turning a process that used to be scattered into something closer to a full-band obsession. That change sits at the center of this unnerving record.
Before this album, the band say songs usually started in pieces — a riff here, a few lyrics there — before one or two people would finish them.
The EPs worked differently because each song mostly came from a different person. This time, everybody stayed in the room. Everybody worked. Everybody kept pushing.
“Writing sessions were very collaborative between the band which was new for us and lead to a lot of varying inspirations,” they say.
“Before the record, our writing process was pretty much just ‘hey i have a riff we could probably use’ or ‘i have a couple lyrics that are cool’ then one or two of us would actually finish the song. All of the ep songs were written by someone different pretty much, so there wasn’t much full band collaboration. with this record, every time we would write, we’d all sit in our drummer Justins living room and write and record demos till like 4-5am.”
“This Room Could Be Heaven” took shape over the course of a year, starting almost immediately after “tarnished | ableedingsky” came out. Concealer wanted more from themselves this time, but not in a neat, polished, self-consciously ambitious way.
They wanted to stretch what a metalcore record could hold without losing the violence and release that brought them there in the first place. “A big goal for this album was to challenge our songwriting a bit and try to push the boundaries of what makes a metalcore album. theres a lot of riffs and breakdowns and screaming of course, but we also added a lot of weird stuff that you typically wouldn’t find on a metalcore/post hardcore record.”
Some of that strange stuff came from sounds that have nothing to do with heavy music on paper: doors, humming, kitchenware, everyday noise broken down through granular and spectral synthesis and tucked into the songs in ways the band say made sense once everything was in place.
“The Stillness Between Us” became the point where they knew the risk was worth it. “The stillness between us (track 7) is a big one. i think we took a big risk putting that song on the record but once we recorded it, it was kind of a no brainer to put it on the album. We love that its a curveball compared to the rest of the songs. We also used a good amount of granular and spectral synthesis on typical everyday noises (doors, humming, kitchenware, etc.) and all that came out perfectly in context of the record.”
They recorded the LP over about 10 days in late August and early September, but the time itself only tells part of it. What mattered was how much of those sessions got spent on detail — harsh noise, atmospheric guitar, extra layers sitting underneath the obvious impact of the songs.
The idea started with Joe and Tristan, then spread through the whole band. “Harsh noise is really tricky because its very easy to make something that overpowers the song and doesn’t fit into the mix super well. We spent a ton of time (maybe too much time) on finding the right sounds to complement whatever section we put it on, rather than overpowering it, unless we intentionally wanted it to be obvious.”
That same balance shows up in the lyrics. Concealer don’t call “This Room Could Be Heaven” a concept album, but they also don’t talk about it like a set of disconnected songs. Tristan wrote short stories and small poems before working on lyrics, trying to understand the world inside each track before putting words to it.
The result, as the band describe it, is a record where each song lives on its own timeline while still sharing a larger emotional ground. Loss, addiction, moral conflict, human nature — those are the recurring pressures, but not in a rigid narrative sense. “While not intentionally setting out to write a concept album, this process in a way shaped the record into having an overall, scrapbooked, narrative.”
The title carries that same openness. Concealer wanted it vague enough to let people find their own way into it, but there was still a private meaning behind the words while the record was being written.
Tristan’s reading of “This Room Could Be Heaven” is tied to fear — not one clean fear, but the kind that sits behind death, love, and the future alike. “i feel the title reflects on the fear of the unknown wether it be death, love, or the future, the unknown is the most relatable fear for anyone, and this album focuses on that heavily.” The band put it more simply: they wanted a title that held the energy of the music, the art, and the vision without pinning it down too tightly.
That vision has been building for a while. Zegema Beach Records had already been in deep with the band after the 2024 double EP, and Concealer’s 2025 ZBR Fest appearance only pushed things further.
Back in October 2024, the label used podcast #164 to talk around the band from a dozen different angles at once: Runescape music videos, rock class, old bands like Bury Your Idols, Greystone, Breathless, and Sense Of Urgency, fake shoegaze, Jordan is forever, Saosin vs. Circa Survive, and getting roundhoused in the balls by Connie from SeeYouSpaceCowboy.
The bands spun through that episode included The Bled, Botch, Circa Survive, Constrain, Examination Of The…, SeeYouSpaceCowboy, and Since By Man. The label’s introduction to that podcast was as direct as you’d expect — hearing the opening track on Concealer’s debut EP was enough to make them want to release the band on the spot, and when Concealer replied, they sent over two more songs that pushed that feeling even further.
Now the first LP is here. Zegema is pitching it to fans of Hopesfall, I Promised The World, Deftones, and The Bled, and the broader shape makes sense: metalcore and metallic hardcore at the base, but constantly slipping sideways into something stranger.
Concealer’s sense of place runs through all of this too. They speak about Orlando less like a city they happen to be from and more like a scene that has been gathering force in public and in private at once.
The last few years have made Orlando a stronger destination for touring heavy bands while also producing its own touring acts, and part of what has made that exciting is the connection between surrounding Florida scenes. They point to withpaperwings, watts, memento, i dreamt of you, flowers for emily, self inflicted wound, and retina in Orlando; fingers woven together in Jacksonville; and niobe.exe, away with words, and fallen god in South Florida as a good snapshot of what is happening there right now.
“With this being our longest body of music thus far, we (along with ZBR, and Ephyra) have been putting tons of work into the release over the past 6 months,” the band say. “theres been some stressful moments but overall we’re extremely proud of this piece of music and we’re super stoked to release it and hear what everyone thinks.”
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