Formed in 2019 by musicians from Everything Flows (post-metal) and Virgil (modern black metal), Lille, France based SPIRE SHARDS offer an intense mixtre of various emotional shades of post hardcore reflecting its urgency and engaged lyricism. “From the fire in me...” marks the first part of a diptych that tackles how solitude can consume you and that screaming for help is not a failure. To celebrate its release, we have teamed up for the exclusive first listen, first hand track by track commenary and special playlist of SPIRE SHARDS’ influences!
“We started Spire Shards in 2019, back then we all felt stuck in our bands.” – comments the band. “Three of us were in a post-metal bands and we wanted to make a more intense and sincere music, Aurélien was in a modern black metal band and was looking for a band in which he could express himself more. When we met, it immediately clicked.”
The band released a 2 song-EP (Crushed/Flooded) on March 3rd 2020, just a few days before the first lockdown in France.
“And now we’re back with a new EP for the 3rd lockdown.” – notes the band. “We wrote those songs during our first year together. Due to COVID-19, we could only record it last summer.”
“We’re very attached to the DIY movement, his raw side even in its productions fits us also because we always have some issues to describe what we have in our minds ! We are all open-minded/curious people, so to have the opportunity to build something from scratch and independently was for us a great way to grow-up and explore different sides of our music. But it can take some time because we’re not professionals and are still learning during each step of the process. We made 100% of our 2-songs EP, recording, mixing, mastering done by our guitarist Laurent and also the cover, made by our drummer Aurélien (you can check his work on social media @Dibbazz)”
“For this new EP we opened our door a little and worked with bosshog studio from our hometown for the mastering and our friend Dotfog did the artwork.”
Asked about their new offering, the band continued: “From the fire in me… is the first part of a diptych (From the fire in me / Only ashes remain) about how solitude can consume you and that screaming for help is not a failure. All the songs are very personal and express our fears and the difficulty to open up, even to our loved ones. Writing songs always acts as some kind of therapy for us.”
𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑏𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑦
Âtre
tre means fireplace in french. It felt right to begin the album with this instrumental song since it begins with a blast that represents well the fire that animate us.
After the fire comes the odd parts, the time signature brings hesitation and a mix between a darker feeling and hope that continues through the song. The rest of the song builds up like a tachycardia, something that you can’t control until you’re out of breath.
Cure
This one is all about anger and keeping this anger in you until it explodes. It also refers to how you can be such a selfish idiot during that time by not listening to anyone, even people who want to help you and even if you don’t have any anger against them specifically. They are just at the wrong place at the wrong time. It shows also how by keeping your anger during so much time, when you release it and you’re like “screw this” you can make a kind of a social suicide by saying everything even if it hurts. Communication is the key, sometimes you only need to say just a little about your feelings to dismantle tricky situations.
Ease the pain
We made those lyrics after a discussion that we had about how scary it is to become a parent currently. The system is struggling, on the ecological side this is a catastrophe, people are more and more extreme in their way of thinking no matter on which side they are and, just because it wasn’t enough, we have a global pandemia. So how can you have a child and be completely serene about it? It’s all about the duality between “well, let the world die, it’s too late anyway”, and “if we make a new generation of good people then we may have a chance”.
Ruined shelter
Ruined shelter was the first song we wrote. It is a heavier and darker song, probably influenced by our postmetal past. The song explains the difficulty to open up and to allow you to express how you feel. At first, it seems easier to act like a robot and to bury what you feel because it’s what you’re used to doing. But once you start to feel confident enough to let it out, you understand that it is the first step to accept yourself as you are.
Naive letter
Naive letter is very different from what we use to do. It started with two simple riffs that Antoine played at the end of a rehearsal, Aurelien joined with the drums and Gautier screamed a melody. The first time we played it we knew that the song was ready. When Antoine got home he wrote the lyrics with the melody in mind and in fifteen minutes the song was done. We never had a chance to play this song live but the recording captured the same sincerity we had when we first played it.
The song expresses how we can feel helpless when someone needs a helping hand despite all the love we have for them.
