The amount of quality independent artists has skyrocketed in recent years and despite the pandemic, 2020 saw numerous emerging talent burst onto the alternative scenes of all kinds. DAY.IS.NEAR is exactly one such project. Pulling influence from post metal, doom rock, sludge, dark hardcore and progressive renditions of the genre, this London/Warsaw-based band are forging a delightful, super diverse and engaging soundscape of dark, heavy music. Packed with a whole range of ideas in the heavy and atmopsheric music spectrum, their debut LP “After the End. Desert Train” just landed online via Spotify and Youtube, and today, we’re giving it a proper nod with a guest commentary from founder Marcin Ε»ycki, and his special track by track rundown below. We asked Marcin to give us some more details on his background and lift the lid on his expansive, atmopsheric sound and reveal what the future brings for his promising new project.
“DayIsNear lives between London, Warsaw and the wild deep forest of South East Poland. Couple of us were involved with hardcore punk band Barricades within the DIY scene of the 90’s so I guess in that respect it was as easier to make it happen today.” – reveals Marcin.
“It’s not a regular band that meets twice a week, plays a couple of gigs a month and puts something out every two three years. But to an extent it may be exactly what makes it more intense ‘- I do something every day and if something’s decent I can record it pretty much instantly in my shed which in order to be more respectable I named ‘Rebel’s liar studio’… We do what we want, we do it every day and we’ve got no constraints like a label deadline or a tour coming up, so whatever comes out it’s exactly how it’s meant to be.”
“”After the End. Desert Train” is the first album, and hopefully it’s fresh. There’s a bit of variety… There’s too many bands who concentrate on keeping it the same.” – says Marcin. “You don’t feel the same through one day so why make an album that spans two years of your life with 10 same songs?”
Distancing themselves from naming genres or labels, he continues: “I fucking hate genres…, and there’s genres within the genres like melodic hard core… I mean… Get a life! And then they’ll spend their whole life trying to tell people to ‘be yourself…'”
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Asked for his track by track commentary, Marcin admits that “this could go on for too long and some lyrics, when they’re mine I would not be comfortable in analyzing as I’d feel I wrote them exactly how they’re meant to be… but let’s have a go at a few.”
Light – is a short intro, I wanted it to be lively, get it going, not these fairy metal (which for some unknown reason they call ‘black’) intros when they hit a chord and look at each other for 8 seconds. Thanks to Neurosis a lot of hardcore bands think today that this is a way you’re supposed to start a record or a whole love gig. Fuck that! I challenge anyone… I mean if you’re going to make hardcore less energetic from the start than let’s say hard rock…?!
Wings‘ got this american retard making an announcement, we thought we would give him a chance to do something half decent before his command is terminated once and for all, so it starts with ‘-There will be death and there will be loads of death…’ It’s got to be something to include in any serious music.
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Then It goes into the title track After the End. Desert Train. these rifts have been with me for about 10 years now and I probably like it too much to make any sense of it and with the lyrics it gets even more complex… They just came out, I was only a messenger!
Horizon/ is dark, it’s like a cemetary walk when overwhelmed with sadness. It somehow spreads over all the graves and helps to bring the head back up. And then we’re ready for ‘Just Another Journey’. It’s an everyday mantra ‘- get up at dawn and put your best into. You never know which one will be the last. ‘Reborn Army of Death’ won’t let you get your sleep. That’s the one for the digital era. You always have to be suspicious of that.
Seven comes from the dreams, a fair amount of music happens in the background and floats away.
Project Fear is the one with suicide in the backgound. If you ever considered it, this one’s for you… We made a little clip for it. With the lyrics and the picture hopefully it makes more sense.
Waves. Breathe is a slow instrumental recovery. It’s a tune, something to settle before ‘Damned’ kicks in. It’s pretty fast and it’ll work well when you walk the city, then you can loop it back to the ‘Wings’ since they are little brother and sister….
Regarding its operations amidst the pandemic, DAY.IS.NEAR is not a touring band as such, so most Covid related issues did not concern them.
“I mean the studio was postponed and work suffered but I know most people had it worse so not going to play a victim’s card here…” – says Marcin.
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“And let me give you a tip” – says Marcin. “If bands gone off the radar or kept moaning how tough it was during the pandemic, drop ’em, they’re shit. If you couldn’t use the extra time to better yourself then you’re not worth anyone elses attention. Far too many moany fuckers in the world.”
“And for the local scene, I’m in London and Maidstone South East of England and not been blown away by anything for some time. That said it may be down to not going to gigs that much (don’t think anyone was recently). Good dad you know and I always feel like I need to get back and do my own stuff…”
To conclude, Marcin says that 2020 will stand out. “Anyone that’s done silly quarantine zoom gig will die in fucking misery”, and he predicts that “2021 will be booming by the end of summer.”
Asked for inspiring music picks and his top records on rotation recently, Marcin recommends ‘Sculpture of Violence’ by Giver and basically anything from Devil Makes Three.
