Track By Track: Calm For The Restless - Finish What You Started (2018)

UK Alt-rockers CALM FOR THE RESTLESS release their melodically dynamic and sweeping debut album, Finish What You Started, on 24th August 2018. Before then we asked the Brit Tunesmith to exclusively talk us through the album:

1. The Destination:

This short track is all about the band itself and where we want to be heading. It's good to have a goal to reach and we're all heading towards an ending in some way.

2. Chase a Life: 

Our drummer Mike worked a few ski seasons in the French alps over the last few years so this song was inspired by him. It's all about feeling there's something more worthwhile out there somewhere and not feeling like you're destined to work your fingers to the bone for the rest of your days. We definitely tried a few new things with this song such as the groovy riffs in the intro and verses. It was a lot of fun to write.

3. I'm a Lion:

One of the very first tracks written for the album. The meaning behind the songs lyrics is all about that one person in your life you look up to for guidance. Someone who reminds you to be strong when everything seems so tough.

4. Rogues:

We called this song "Rogues" because as we were writing it it just felt like it didn't wish to be controlled. It's a pretty relentless song and one we've already enjoyed playing live. These sorts of tracks we love to play live. Gets us good and sweaty because we feel the song in our bones and it shows on stage. We don't play songs we don't mean. It's a statement about the fall

of the music industry.

5. Brothers:

If "I'm a Lion" is Mufasa, then "Brothers" is the Simba song of the album. Our vocalist Leon wrote it about the bond and friendship he has with his brother and how knowledge and wisdom shared between the two has helped him move forward in many aspects of life. We had a lot of fun in the studio with this one as it's a very sparse song we could do a lot with it that we couldn't do with other songs.

6. We Need To Wake Up: 

Potential is something a lot of people struggle with. Self-worth is a big problem for some to see and realise and we've tried to tap into that with this song. It's basically saying you need to snap out of it and see how much you mean to people and how much good you could do. We knew while writing this we wanted it to have an orchestral score in it and our producer Ed has done an awesome job.

7. Crossfire: 

Everyone likes an upbeat song about anxiety so here it is! For such a little song we gave it quite a bit of character to stand up against the big tunes. When we write lyrics we love using metaphor, its like deceptive poetry. This song is riddled with metaphor about mental health and having the confidence to do something about it.

8. Moving On:

As the song title suggests it's all about turning that page and leaving behind something you acknowledge with pride, something that got you to where you are now. In many ways this song represents the overall meaning of the whole album for us.

9. The Journey: 

Another short one and sister song to "The Destination". This time however the songs lyrics are written from the perspective of Calm for the Restless itself as its own entity reflecting on its 5 members and various journeys we've been on physically and mentally together.

10. Years:

Again another song written very early on in the albums creation. I think this track definitely set the tone for where we wanted to go with the album and it fit very nicely as the album closer, one last push to the end. This song in particular is a personal favourite of all of ours as it speaks about childhood dreams and what you can achieve, not alone, but together.”