New Band of the Week: Miles From Home

South Wales newcomers Miles From Home have honed an intense yet infectious modern metal sound that combines full-throttle riffs, vicious vocals and engaging melodies, and they describe as “catchy, harsh and modern.”

The band hail from the town of Bridgend, which has delivered two of the UK’s finest metal bands in Bullet For My Valentine and Funeral For A Friend. But this is a band that’s ready to not only pick up the mantle from these greats but also establish itself at the forefront of the exciting British metal scene.

Miles From Home formed in 2014 but only vocalist Matt Herbert remains as a new band was effectively created in 2020 and began releasing music last year. The additions of Owen Doherty (lead guitar), TJ Norman (rhythm guitar), Ethan Edwards (bass) and Ethan Simons (drums), who all met during nights out in Bridgend and through a love of metal music, have seen the band begin honing a unique modern metal sound.

On that sound, they tell us: “We’d say modern more than anything. We’re really trying to hit that vibe. Things constantly change in music so although we’re changing with the times, we also want to stay true to what we originally wanted to do.”

Our most recent taste of that is new single Escape, which was released last month. It opens up with a cool spinning guitar riff, which continues under gruff vocals and light drums. That drops into a heavy opening verse, then big screams feed into a deliciously catchy chorus that you can’t help but sing along to. A second verse ends with interactions between gruff screamed vocals and slightly terrifying responses, then chugging guitars and huge guttural screams set up another chorus. It ends with massive screamed vocals that bring the track to a heavy conclusion.

On the track, the band told us: “The reception has been great, so many kind words from new and old fans. We sort of changed our sound a little bit with this track so it’s nice that older fans still love it. People should expect harsh riffs, catchy melodies and just a great song to headbang to.”

Escape follows on from Miles From Home’s superb debut album Damned By Disease, which was released in May and was recorded, mixed and mastered by BFMV’s Michael Paget. The album absolutely delivers with every single track and we find a new favourite track with every listen!

It opens in style with the massive Abomination, which begins with a building riff that drops into huge chugging guitars. Big vocals take over and the track continues to intensify as piercing high-pitched guitars creep in and give way to savage screams. Clean vocals take over the chorus with able support from some vicious backing vocals, then a heavy verse and breakdown drop into a mellow moment of recovery, which builds up to another chorus.

That’s followed by You Play The Brain, I’ll Play The Fool, which opens with whispered vocals that give way to a delicious darting riff and intense vocals. Clean vocals come in for the chorus, supported by a backdrop of heavy guitars and drums, then gives way to vicious vocals and big doomy cymbals.

The album is absolutely packed with metal goodness, including a personal favourite Root Of All Evil, which offers the perfect mix of delicious riffing, intense vocals and catchy choruses, plus a huge breakdown that gives way to a guitar solo. There’s also Rise And Fall, which opens with a repeating high-pitched guitar lick building to a vicious first verse and ends with engaging clean vocals and driving guitars and drums.

Every single track on the album delivers, including the hugely engaging Breathe, which drops into a moment of calm and gradually builds to powerful clean vocals over a laid-back guitar solo. There’s also the dramatic opening to the intense The Mighty Will Fall, which features a savage breakdown that sets up the final chorus, and the heavy groove of their debut single Road To Serenity.

They offer up something a little different in the more mellow penultimate track The Impossible, before the fantastic album closer This Solitary Soul. Check it out in the stream here:

Miles From Home’s members are influenced by a huge number of bands. But they tell us that Wage War’s sound is a perfect mix of all their musical interests and the kind of sound similar to what they wanted to create.

And on what inspires them to write music, they tell us: “Writing music is tough if you’re not inspired at the moment. It’s quite difficult because sometimes we’ll feel really inspired but we’re not in the right place to start writing. The biggest thing from our first album was the aspect of mental health during lockdown and how much it affected us not being able to socialise or see our friends and family. With future music, we want to be even truer to ourselves and dig deep into what we care about most.”

There’s plenty more to come from Miles From Home, including gigs, sorting out new merch and looking into creating a website through the remainder of this year. Then next year, they’ll be back in the studio to write their second album, which they promise will be a little different from the first.

And the band adds: “We want to ensure everything we write and record is something we’d listen to. We’re all dedicated to making this band work. We all love metal music and we’re extremely passionate about this, so we won’t stop working hard until we put our stamp on the metalcore community.”

You can follow Miles From Home on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.