Bruising Birmingham band Atarka have honed a powerful and commanding groove-tinged melodic death metal sound that they describe as “imposing, merciless and melodic.”
The quintet, formed of vocalist Jamie Smith, guitarists Alex Dutton and Haydn Edwards, who recently replaced Daniel McCarthy, bassist Adam Bayliss and drummer Phil Sheldon, have crafted a diverse sound that flits between pure death metal and more melodic elements.
As Jamie explains: “We’ve got quite a difficult sound to define, we don’t really replicate what any of our influences do one for one. I guess we’d say part melodic death metal, part groove metal with just a sprinkling of black metal for good measure and served with a side of metalcore. There’s something in our sound that every kind of metal fan can enjoy.”
They’d all been part of bands before Atarka, including Adam and Daniel being in a previous project that left them “feeling fairly stifled.”
As Adam tells us: “After moving on there was a need to make music that we enjoyed and had a deep passion for. The idea was to just write an album’s worth of material and maybe record it from a bare-bones home studio setup. After writing nearly nine full songs we felt as though it deserved more than just two guys recording onto a MacBook. We got in touch with our friend Jamie, being one of the best vocalists in our circle, and later recruited Alex and Phil for guitar and drums respectively.
“Getting in that rehearsal space and running through one of our early tracks Miasma, I think we all felt the vibe that we were onto something with Atarka. Less than a year later, we were firmly establishing ourselves on the Birmingham live circuit and had our debut album Sleeping Giant recorded, mixed and mastered.”
Unfortunately, the week their debut album was scheduled for release, the UK went into lockdown amid the Covid pandemic. That meant they were unable to fully support the album, which Adam tells us “stoked the fire inside of all of us for our next release.”
Approaching three years on from that, the band are preparing for the release of their new EP The Mountain on 14 April. Ahead of that, our first taste of their music was the lead single Barbarian, which features the guest vocals of Soilwork’s Björn Strid.
The track opens up with a bang as vicious vocals are supported by crushing guitars and drums. A jumpy riff comes in as more wild vocals continue then big cries of “Barbarian” and intense throaty retorts. The intensity drops slightly with palm-muted guitars supporting heavy vocals, which feeds into a powerful section of clean vocals backed by a searing synth and more melodic instrumentals.
Big drawn out guitars take over with doomy drums and cymbals then big cries of “Barbarian,” which give way to cool guitars supported by massive pounding drums and another piercing synth sound. That tees up a vicious conclusion of intense vocals, driving guitars and drums to end on a real high. Check it out this monstrous track in the video here:
On what to expect from the EP as a whole, Jamie tells us: “The Mountain is truly that, an absolute mountain of a record. A lot of passion and effort has been poured into every track and we’re beyond excited for people to hear it! The reception to our first single Barbarian has been nothing short of incredible.
“A lot of Sleeping Giant pulls from the darkest aspects of the human condition like depression, fears and loss. Whereas The Mountain is a lot more conceptual in nature; pulling less from real life and more from escapist genres like fantasy and sci-fi. I often refer to it as ‘romantic and hype.’ I think all five of us in Atarka have grown a lot as people since 2019 and the sound has matured as a result. It’s got all the familiar trappings that made our sound unique on Sleeping Giant, but on steroids. It very much feels like a natural evolution of our sound we’re super proud of this little four-track behemoth we’ve created.”
He also adds that his favourite track from the record is its title track, telling us: “It’s a big grand EP closer that’s quite dramatic in nature. It’s potentially got the best melodic hook I’ve ever written as a vocalist on it, you’re gonna shit your pants.”
While Adam counters: “I’d go the other way, I think my favourite has to be Throne of Disgrace, the opening track. It starts off big and impending and then mashes together some real stompy pit riffs with a catchy chorus. That last riff always gets me pumped up when we play it live too.”
If you like what you heard from Barbarian then there’s plenty more to whet your appetite before The Mountain is released. Sleeping Giant is packed with huge tracks like The Bastard and a personal favourite Golden Snake, check it out here:
The Atarka sound has been crafted from a wide range of musical interests, from the four core pillars of Gojira, Mastodon, In Flames and Baroness to Jamie being influenced by “larger-than-life frontmen” like Freddy Mercury and Axl Rose.
While Adam told us: “I think you need to take inspiration from all genres of music you enjoy. Whether it’s black metal, prog rock, deathcore or pop-punk. I think if anyone goes back through our older stuff they’ll see some sections are influenced by certain sub-genres of metal that probably aren’t at the core of our more well-known songs.”
And on what inspires them to write music, Jamie explains: “From a lyrical standpoint, I’m very much a ‘wear my heart on my sleeve’ kind of person. There’s nothing more therapeutic than putting your darkest thoughts and biggest insecurities on paper and then taking those words and screaming them at the top of your lungs. I’m also enjoying playing a little bit more with historical subject matter, as well as pulling from folklore and straight-up fiction.”
And Adam adds: “I guess musically you write what you enjoy, and there’s nothing I enjoy more than hard-hitting riffs sprinkled with melody to really make those hairs on the back of your neck stand up.”
Atarka will release their first EP The Mountain on 14 April, which is available for pre-order here. The EP will be supported by a launch show at The Devils Dog in Birmingham on 22 April, for which tickets are available here. The band are keen to back the album up with as many live shows as possible, so expect shows across the UK and Europe.
As Jamie says: “We’re super energised by having a brand new creative voice in the band in the form of Haydn so we’ve absolutely got the writing bug again. But I wouldn’t expect anything new from us for a while after this, our priority is our live shows.
And Adam continues: “Yeah it’s gonna be nice to do as many shows as possible, as we touched on earlier the lockdowns really stifled our ability to gig any of the Sleeping Giant material. So in essence we’re going to be taking an album and an EP worth of material on the road.”
You can follow Atarka on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.
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