Melbourne metalcore risers Drown This City have announced their new EP Colours We Won’t Know will be released on Friday May 28 via UNFD. Following their new single and video ‘New Burn Order’ last month, the band are following up with a fierce new cut from the EP titled ‘Borderline Existence‘ today.
DTC vocalist Alex Reade shares how the track’s haunting scenario – depicting a person’s out of body experience watching on at themselves trapped in an asylum – represents the agitation and anger she’s experienced feeling forced to pursue a certain path due to external pressure placed on her.
“I’ve found myself wearing thin because of this, wondering what I was fighting against and how long could I keep going for. This song reflects the battle I feel to succeed against all odds, fuelled by sheer terror that my life will be for nothing,” she shares.
“The line ‘I really thought that I’d amount to something, I should have known you’d get me in the end’ really reflects the exhaustion I feel wondering if I can keep going with this fight to be heard and understood. I’m exhausted, always pushing against, trying to win, trying to get ‘there’ and I just don’t know where that is anymore.”
Drown This City’s Alex Reade describes the band’s 2021 EP as the ultimate purge of darkness. While their 2019 release Alpha // Survivor had been the proving ground for her strength and overcoming, Colours We Won’t Know finds the vocalist winding back the clock and standing face to face with the past torment she thought had been put to rest.
“I think being in lockdown in Melbourne left us no choice but to face whatever we were running from, and that time drew every bit of honesty with myself out of me,” she says. “It was very confronting to feel such sadness in me again, but I worked through all of the disgust and shame I’d been suppressing, and we’ve written our saddest and bleakest songs to date because of it.”
Musically, DTC find themselves at their absolute heaviest and collaborating on themes and ideas as a band and team more than ever. With a freshly formed core writing group at play — comprising Reade (lyrics), guitarist Josh Renjen leading instrumentation and new bassist/vocalist and co-lyricist Toby Thomas — together the band push every boundary possible. Fuelled by references to metalcore, hardcore and other heavy sub-genres, CWWK offers dynamic instrumentation, stark lyrical imagery and elevated clean/unclean vocal delivery.
Thomas joined the DTC family just prior to the writing and recording of the release and listeners will find his particular influence over belters ‘Carbon14’ and ‘Time Won’t Remember Us’. On his debut project with Drown This City, he shares how he and Reade quickly formed a bond and drew from their similar experiences to bring the release to life.
“Colours We Won’t Know is an exploration of cognitive distortions depicted from different perspectives and stories, ultimately derived from our experiences,” he says. “The songs discuss the results of trauma and mental illness, along with the effects this has on our own environments and those around us. It both embraces and challenges hope in the face of personal awareness and growth.”
Despite its darkness, CWWK ultimately offers a glimmer of hope with the message that it’s never too late to tackle your mental health head on, even long after you think you’ve beaten it. With their own personal wounds truly laid bare and continuing to heal, ultimately Drown This City hope to stir up the courage in everyone to dig deep and fight their buried pain.
‘COLOURS WE WON’T KNOW’ FULL EP OUT MAY 28 VIA UNFD
