Track By Tracks: Landmarks - In Spite Of It All (2016)

Just as Landmarks band were wrapping up their time recording, disaster struck, as bassist Adam reveals: “The studio was broken into during the night. Twice. Much of the equipment was stolen, and the studio was brought to its knees.” It was this twisted turn of events that, in part, inspired the E.P’s title, a middle finger to fate’s cruel hand; “That traumatic event solidified the phrase in our minds,” says Adam, “It’s subsequently come to work almost as a band motto for us. ‘In Spite Of It All’ sees Landmarks making a departure from their pop punk roots toward an alt-rock laced sound. Though still rich in melody, it’s an altogether more sombre affair, recalling the likes of Brand New in its downturned, more introspective aesthetic. Here the band delve in to give you more detail of what you can expect, track by track…

1. Translucent:

This felt like a good opening track for the EP because it’s one of the few that begins with all of us coming in at the same time, giving it a bigger sound than some of our other songs. Translucent is also a good introduction to our band because it captures the changes we’ve made to our sound since the addition of Nic on guitar. The lyrics are from an old, unrecorded track called ‘Ghosts’ and are about finding your own identity in a time that doesn't seem to celebrate individuality as much as it should. The music has changed a lot since we originally wrote it, we really like the lead guitar Nic added throughout the track and Tom spent a long time working on the drums in the second verse - which sound great! We’ve played it a few times live and it goes down pretty well.

2. Cutting Strings:

This was sort of the first track that we wrote for the EP - more on that later - and it came together really quickly. The lyrics had been floating around since our European tour with our friends in Melrose during the summer of 2015 and were inspired by Avengers: Age of Ultron as well as a story Brad put together about a fractured relationship. It wasn’t until Nic came in to the band that we managed to get some music behind the lyrics though. The opening really reminds me of an Angels and Airwaves track thanks to the guitar effect our producer Matt Heap suggested, but my favourite part of the song comes after the chorus. We wanted to do something a little different so Brad wrote a bass part that broke up the song a little bit, and we liked it so much that it became a guitar part too! We’ve been playing it live since autumn last year so it’s nice that people can hear the recorded version now.

3. Limb from Limb:

Nic brought this guitar part to practice with him one day and we all fell in love with it straight away. Brad already had some lyrics in mind after hearing it for the first time and we tried to develop it with a full band but it never quite lived up to the original. We decided that it would be nice to include it on the EP as a softer track that continues the relationship theme established in ‘Cutting Strings’ so that’s where the lyrics come from. It was a little bit longer at first but we eventually decided that less is more. This is the first time we’ve tried something like this in our band and I think it’s come out really well, crowds seem to enjoy it at live shows but we’re careful when choosing what gig to play it at. If we’re playing a club night for example, it’s probably not the best idea when everyone’s wasted and fancies a dance!

4. Friend of Mine:

This is the song we were talking about when we said that ‘Cutting Strings’ was only sort of the first song that was written for the EP. The music for ‘Friend of Mine’ has been around since 2012 when we had our original guitarist James and our original frontman Liam, and we actually recorded it for our previous EP ‘Fighting Gravity’ but something about it didn’t feel right. We always like the chords and time signature though because it’s the only song we have in 3/4 which gives it a real swingy feel. Lyrically, this is one of the songs that we all played a part in writing and it concerns a friend that you’ve lost touch with over the years thanks to a series of bad decisions. This is something we’ve all had experience with to some extent but the lyrics did undergo a lot of changes before we recorded the final version. It’s probably the poppiest song we’ve written as a band and one of our favourites to play live.

5. With Clarity:

This started as a guitar part from Nic again that we worked on for several weeks to get it just right. The drop after the opening lyrics introduces a bouncy aspect into the song and in a way it’s both the closest to our older sound and shows how much we’ve improved as songwriters. Brad and Adam wrote the chorus together as a ‘call and response’ which is different to any of the songs on our previous EP. It’s the bridge that really stands out though, especially Tom’s drums which he worked really hard to get sounding perfect - and they do. We’ve been playing this close to the end of our set recently and it’ll be a staple of our live shows for a long time because we all love playing it because it’s one of our faster tracks. When we were discussing what track should close the EP, we couldn't really think of a better choice than this, the chorus is huge and brings the record to a close brilliantly.