Currents were formed as long ago as 2011, but it took a change in singer in 2015 when they brought in Brian Wille, that Jeff Brown (drums), Chris Wiseman (guitar), Ryan Castaldi (guitar) and Dee Cronkite (bass) felt the line-up was right. This is their debut album, about which Brown says: "It's definitely dark lyrically. Although some of the leads and drums might make it more upbeat. Over all the album is about Brian's thoughts and fighting his demons. We left all the vocals up to him so he could have full creative control. It turned out awesome and we are super proud of it. The instruments came together over two years of writing. We went into the studio with over 50 songs and ideas and left with 13 songs we believed were our best work."
This is metalcore, and Brian has a wide range of vocal styles, moving between smooth and raw, gruff and death, whatever is felt is right for the song at hand. What is interesting though, are not the vocals, but what is going on with the music. True, there are times when it is all about heads down and hope that they all finish at the same time at the end, but there are also a lot of mathcore and influences from such as Meshuggah. This certainly makes them stand out from the normal metalcore crowd, as this is way more complex, and therefore interesting, than much of that scene.
I found the more I played this album the more I wanted to, the more I wanted to investigate what was happening, and get to grips with the music. At one level, it is accessible the very first time it is played, but this really is about peeling the onion as the deeper the listener delves into the music the more there is to discover. I am not generally a massive fan of metalcore, but Currents are trying to take it in a direction of which I greatly approve. Given that this is a debut it will be interesting to see where they go to from here. For more details visit the label site at www.nuclearblast.de
