Dare to be different is an age old motto that generally doesn’t translate as well in practice as it does in theory.
Especially when it comes to music.
Fans grow to expect a core sound from their favourite band’s, with deviations from the norm received with skepticism and fear.
As such many bands stick to a more regulated tried and true formula – and who can blame them in the modern cut-throat world of music?
Not so US rock outfit Farewell To Fear, who have continued to expand their sound on their recently released third album Polarity.
Polarity by name as well as nature, the album sees Farewell To Fear pulling from a wide range of genres within the rock spectrum, ranging from heavy to melodic, to nostalgic to thrash to angst, modern and emotional rock.
HEAVY sat down with vocalist Mike Craig and guitarist Tom Gibbons to discuss the album.
“This album will take you from one spectrum of the rock genre to the other,” Craig affirmed, “leaving everyone with something they can take away and hopefully bring them back to what music is all about and give them a sense of what they like about metal or rock."
"I remember when we were first writing this record Mike called me out of the blue and was like, 'Tom I wanna do some fucken thrash metal',” Gibbons continued. “I remember him saying that to me and I said are you serious? Because Farewell previously was more radio rock/modern rock/modern metal, so for Mike to come up to me and say I want the album to have some thrash music in there... so I replied, like Metallica, Anthrax, Megadeth? Are you being serious, and he said yeah let's do it! For me, I was stoked because when I was younger old thrash was all I would listen to from Death Angel, Testament and Metallica - Metallica is my favourite all time band - so this was really, really exciting for me. It was also very challenging because I haven't played that style in so long, so it was fun to go back a little bit."
In the full interview, the boys talk more about the songs on Polarity, the meaning behind the title, experimenting with music without alienating fans, the current over-emphasis on genres and how it gets confusing, the early vision of Farewell To Fear and how it has changed since and more.