Oslo powerful melodic hardcore / metalcore band KINGSEEKER (ex-COASTLINES) are releasing their new album “Daily Reminders” this Friday, January 21st, and today we’re stoked to give you an early stream of the full thing, along with the band’s insightful, in-depth track by track commentary below.
The trio has released multiple singles that have been called by the national youth radio “NRK P3” as “captivating, heavy and fast hardcore”. Inspired by the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, Poison The Well and In Flames, KINGSEEKER have managed to pull out some ripping riffs and emulate their predecessors with a bang! Check out the band’s Top Norwegian Heavy Bands Worth Checking Out special, released exclusively for IDIOTEQ at this location.
Kingseeker – Daily Reminders track by track rundown:
1. Daily Reminders (instrumental)
This would probably be counted as the first song that the core group (Aron, Emil and Jan) wrote together. It was written about 15 minutes after meeting eachother for the first time. And is probably the reason I (Jan) got to become a member of the band. We instantly found out that we were speaking the same language, both actually (in that we used the same sounds and such to show our thoughts on how the song was meant to be) and musically.
This song is a moodsetter. It eases you in to the mindset of the album which is Sad but optimistic.
Song Funfact:
The song was written on an 8 string. was a way for Emil to betatest the Misha Mansoor plugin.
2. Unto Us
Unto Us started out as a comepletely different song…twice. The song originally was called «Denial».and was meant for the ep that never was. That still hasn’t been «Grief» It represents the disbelieg you feel when a loved has taken their own lives, in this instance Jan’s older brother, and the fact that even though you take your own life, the pain and burdens is only transferred to others and the psychological damage this can do to them. The song was written from the point of view of Jan, when he one early sunday morning got a call from his mother, where she told him his brother had hung himself.
Song fun fact: This song was actually a song that was meant for Aaron’s old band Murder The Traitor. Aaron had sent Guitarpro files to Emil way back in 2015 with riffs that would later become this song.
3. Copium
Copium is a song inspired from Aarons hardships, when he was left homeless and had some drugdependancy issues.We spoke a lot about these things during the recordin process, and we made sure to make the lyrics reflect the internal feeling you have when needing these and how it affect your view on things around. This was written form 1st person perspective, to make the listener relate better to the subjectmatter.
Song funfact: Written because Jan thought we were going to hard on the metal part of metalcore, and because he wanted more twostep rythms in the song. Give Jan two-step rythms, that bitch loves two-step rythms.
4. Umbra feat. Robbe Madsen of Halcyon Days
Umbra is quite simply a song about accepting your own faults, and mental disabilities, when concerning depression, self hate and such. The only way to get better and work on your self is to accept who you are and work with the cards you are dealt.
Song funfact: This song is also a song from 2017 which they had already recorde with a different vocalist, when we were still called «Coastlines». The song was reworked and re-recorded twice,before Jan stepped in and we made it more «hardcore» and less «Deathcore». Robbe Madsen was added as a feature, to make the son stand out from the single version, so people don’t feel completely ripped of for including it on the album as well.
5. Butterflies
Butterflies is really the only «lovesong» on the album. It is about the feeling you have when you are in a new relationship with someone, and every song on the radio is about you, every beautiful thing reminds you of that special someone. And the lyrics were written by Jan to his girlfriend.
Song funfact.: When Jan sent Emil a video of him humming the main melody, Emil was convinced Jan was drunk, as he sent it late at night, walking outside in the cold. The projectfile name for the song, was JanFullIde or in english «JanDrunkIdea»-
Song fundact 2: Jan’s girlfriend dumped him two days before this single came out.
6. Flowered Waterfalls
This is the second song we wrote together, it was written an hour after «Daily Reminders» was written. Also written with an 8 string, using the same settings as the first time.
Lyrically the song is about the abuse women and especially women in the porn industry can experience, and in general the way women are seen by incels, an chauvinists alike. The message is quite simply, women don’t need white knights, they need to be seen as equal.
There was some internal discussions when Jan wrote the lyrics, whether having such a blatant political message in our songs was a position we wanted to take.
Song funfact: The golden petals that are said in the first phrase is referencing pee.
7. Oceans Of Regret
This song was also originally meant for the «Grief» Ep that still hasn’t been. Its original name was Anger, before it was renamed Coward and finally renamed to Oceans Of Regret. The song is about the feeling of anger you feel towards the person who has died, and in this case committed suicide.
There are so many questions left unanswered and the guilt is overwhelming. The oceans of regret in this song is relating to the tears that were cried during Jan’s borthers funeral, where he at the age of 29, saw his father cry for the first time.
Song fun fact: Jan was afraid of how his family would react to this songs lyrics, and had to ask them if it was okay first.
8. A Life You Neglected
This song is about the feeling you get when breaking up with your significant other, when you both still love eachother deeply, but you’re not right for eachother. It’s specifically about that moment when you both think «Please, dont go, when you leave it’s over for real,» And just wanting that moment to not be over.
Song Funfact: The song ended up as it is today because of confusion among the band. There exists a demoversion of this song that has an At The Gatesy verse riff. The reason for the confusion? Everyone thought the two others liked the new version better. Communication in this band i S-tier.
9. Empires
Empires is about how people willingly ignore other peoples mental health issues. When people ask «How are you?» they expect you to answer «Oh im fine, cant complain». Its about breaking down the barriers and normalizing being honest in every day conversation.
Song funfact: This song is the first one that happened when Emil joined the band in 2017. Emil had hit up Aron wanting to record/produce his band, and ended up joining the band in the process. They sat up until late in the evening in a basement apartment in Skien recording the parts for it. Aron had it written out, but not really knowing what to do with it, since the rest of the band were very Deathcore oriented. When Emil requested that we play something more melodic and catchy, Aron dug through the archives, found the guitar pro file for this, and the rest just happened by itself. There is an in promptu playthrough that they did from the recording session of this, and while imperfect in its execution, it really shows how much fun they had back then. Good times!
10. Broder
Broder, meaning «Brother» in Norwegian was lyrically written 6 hours after Jan found out about his brothers suicide. The lyrics were reworked three times in the span of a week. Itæs about how it feels to be asked and reminded about such an event, every time you meet someone you know.
Even though this album is not a concept album, this is the song where you narratively speaking in the album find out about the suicide and the regrets Jan has for not using the time he had with his brother more effectively.
Song fun fact: This song was originally written by Emil for a video game that he did the soundtrack for. The game was called “Speed Bus…Or Something”, and never saw an official release, but it did feature on Tokyo Game Show, and was about driving a bus as fast as possible and causing all sorts of mayhem. Emil wasn’t prepared that the game show was coming up, which means that somewhere out there exists a video of some very awkward video game journalists playing this game to a very unfinished and out of tune version of this song, and it makes us chuckle every time.
11. Uzumaki feat. Ivan Hansen of Frostbitt
The song name is a reference to both Naruto and the manga named Uzumaki.
Uzumaki came about when Emil had stayed up until the morning during the first Corona lockdown and saw the sun rise up. The sight of the sun coming up for some reason gave him a real bout of depression, and the intro melody just popped up in his head to fit the mood.
The lyrics are about the feeling of isolation many people felt when the lockdown happened,
Song funfact: Originally the lyrics Jan wrote for this was about people rejoicing about the fact that the world was gonna end by way of meteor. He stole this subjectmatter from the chorus of It Dies Today’s “Freak gasoline fight accident”. Ivan Hansen was added as a feature because the we all felt he would be able to put some “Gojira” mojo to the song.
12. Imposter Syndrome
One of the many things Jan feels working with such talented and great musicians and songwriters such as Emil and Aron is Impoister Syndrome. At times Jan feels like he contributes nothing productive to the collective writing process and feels like he is a burden to both the band and to others when he speaaks to them.
This song is about that and the internal arguement a person with these feelings has. We think the feeling of Imposter Syndrome is a rather unversal one.
Song funfact: This one also happened late one night when Emil had a melody stuck in his head. He had been listening to a lot of Architects, and had a total kick on those bouncy and somewhat technical riffs with atmospheric guitars going on in the background. He made the mockup, and then the rest of the song just somewhat happened by itself.
