Editor’s note: This video could be potentially triggering to people with suicidal thoughts, PTSD, and other mental health concerns. We believe hope is real and life is worth living. If you are hurting, find the right help. You’re worth it.
Yorkshire melodic metallers Caskets, who recently announced their new album Reflections for an August 11 release via SharpTone Records, have today released an affirming new single “Better Way Out.”
Speaking of the track, frontman Matt Flood says, “‘Better Way Out’ is a song that relates to suicidal thoughts and tendencies. It’s a song about noticing and understanding the trials and tribulations of life, about rising above the feelings of depression and anxiety and knowing your self-worth. To have somebody say that they see you and they hear you, or to have a community by your side while you go through these daily battles, isn’t something afforded to everybody. So many of us can blindly walk through the barriers that we build inside our heads, alone without a shoulder to cry on or a friend to lend an ear.”
“No matter what you’ve been through and might still be going through… there are always routes out of your situation. You are strong, you are beautiful, you are loved, and you are enough. Don’t walk that road alone. We all need each other.”
There’s an art to looking back. For Caskets, it could have been easy to plough forwards regardless, riding the wave of success from their breakthrough debut Lost Souls, that opened tours up across the United States and mainland Europe, and secured appearances at landmark festivals Download and Slam Dunk. But having swapped the bedrooms that fostered album number one for countless hours on the road, reflecting on that journey and the decisions that led them down certain paths quickly became unavoidable.
If Lost Souls was primarily driven by Flood’s personal experiences, Reflections delivers a wider picture of Caskets as a whole, borne out of the usual interpersonal differences that all bands face at least once in their career. For some it marks the end, but for others, it fosters a collaborative environment that pushes the music well beyond what has come before.
The result reflects each individual member of Caskets, with Matt joined by guitarists Benji Wilson and Craig Robinson, bassist Chris McIntosh, and drummer James Lazenby. The record has more upbeat moments that carry impactful melodies, upping the ante from Lost Souls with considered force, while the powerful ambient moments play out with real finesse.
In a step away from the singular retellings of Lost Souls, the Dan Weller (Bury Tomorrow, Enter Shikari, Holding Absence)-produced Reflections is a series of individual lessons, looking back at a specific moment in one of the band member’s lives; a thought, feeling, or events, and how that moment shaped the present.
“Reflections shows how much more we can get out of the band musically if we all put our heads together a bit more,” Flood beams, positive about a record that not only showcases Caskets as a full entity but represents the impressive range of influences that have soundtracked the five piece’s times on the road and in the studio, helping to rapidly expand their sound.
“It’s always about the music, that’s the whole point of being in a band. If we can fit as much into our sound but it still sounds like us, that’s my lifelong goal with Caskets.”
Reflections is now available for pre-order.
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