As I enter the studio where Arcane Roots are busy beavering away on the follow up to 2013’s Blood & Chemistry, the first thing that strikes me is hooks. Gigantic ear worms that wrap themselves around your auditory cortex and simply refuse to let go. It’s no exaggeration to say that these songs are some of the catchiest tunes the band have penned to date.
“The grand plan is to get these songs stuck in people’s heads for days," says vocalist/guitarist Andrew Groves. ‘It's that fight between the melodies and the heavier side of our music and trying to get those two elements to marry together. The problem is when you start sticking loads of riffs together without melody, then it just sounds like a bunch of riffs that have been shoved together rather than a song that’s actually going somewhere.”
The band have returned to Stakeout Studios, the very same studio that bore witness to the recording of their debut mini-album Left Fire, partly because it’s local and partly because, as Andrew enthuses “Reuben recorded Racecar is Racecar Backwards here!” They're here to record a new EP, Heaven & Earth, five gloriously anthemic songs that are amongst the most joyful the band have written to date. The main focus of the two days I spend in the studio is on recording Andrew’s guitar parts and vocal lines, the bass and drum tracks having been laid down a few days before.
If the melodies I hear cascading out of the vocal booth are anything to go by, it’s clear that they have been refined and finessed into succinct infectious vocal lines that are begging to be sung back to the band en masse in a live environment. Andrew has pushed himself as a vocalist, utilizing his voice in ways that we’ve not heard from him before. (He mentions singing along to White Christmas at home to reach the low notes of one particularly deep vocal line). “I'm putting myself out on the line as a frontman really and I think this is the first record where I’ve really thought about my role as a frontman. (When the band started) I didn't want to sing, I just wanted to play guitar. Now I sing and play guitar and I thought, ‘if I'm gonna do both I'm gonna do both well!’” From: https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/features/arcane-roots-in-the-studio-the-grand-plan-is-to-get-these-songs-stuck-in-people-s-heads-for-days-10416987.html
