New Zealand rockers This Silent Divide have honed an engaging sound that traverses the indie, rock and metal landscapes in what they describe as “energetic, melodic, wall-of-sound rock.”
The Wellington group was formed in 2018 by vocalist and guitarist Shaun Jones, when he decided to get back into music and grew the band through musician-wanted ads. The result was Shaun being joined by Kieran Williams (lead guitar and backing vocals), Jonatan Jaworski (bass) and Sunil Jolly (drums).
Since then the band has been hard at work honing what Shaun describes to us as: “A melodic rock sound with pounding drums, big, wall-of-sound guitars, soaring vocals.”
Our first taste of this was the band’s latest single Beautiful Creature, which was released in May. It opens up with rolling drums that feed into a looping riff and driving drums, which flow into a laid-back opening verse led by engaging vocals. It suddenly bursts into a big catchy chorus “I don’t know why, I don’t know how, Is it so hard to see? Lock him up, goodbye, Look past your beliefs, I don’t know why, I don’t know how, In his mind he’s free, Lock him up, goodbye.”
The looping riff returns to bridge into a mellow verse, in which a cheeky little guitar lick leads us into another big chorus. A delicious guitar solo takes over, everything drops out except for chugging palm-muted chords that build up to a big final blast of the chorus. It’s a bit of a banger!
On the track, Shaun told us: “The reception to our new single Beautiful Creature has been great! We’ve had some great reviews, good support from indie radio in NZ and the track has been played by rock radio shows in the US, UK and Germany. We worked with a really great NZ producer called Toby Lloyd from Tiny Triumph Recordings on the studio recording and had it mastered by Robin Schmidt in Germany (Royal Blood, Pixies, Placebo). It sounds huge and we’re stoked with how it turned out.
“The music video for the song has also been well received and was a lot of fun to make… lugging our gear up a big hill to film the band in some old, graffitied bunkers and casting a few friends as actors to bring the rest of the video’s story to life. There’s a bit of mystery in the video storytelling…it’s up to the interpretation of the viewer really. The song features quite a moody, dark verse and then explodes into a big guitar chorus with soaring vocals. Lyrically, the song is a commentary on society’s desire to all-too-quickly write off and punish people who lash out when pushed beyond their limits.” Check it out in the video here:
That single follows on from This Silent Divide’s debut EP Tall Stories, which was released in 2021. That’s also packed with great tracks like the lively opener In My Life, the slightly more anthemic Eyes, and their debut single Lucinda, which you can check out in the video below:
This Silent Divide’s members are influenced by a wide range of music, but shared influences include the likes of Foo Fighters, Deftones, Queens of the Stone Age, Smashing Pumpkins and NZ rock band Shihad.
And on what inspires them to write music, Shaun says: “Lyrically our songs are typically inspired by the stories of people we’ve met along the way. They’re songs of inspiration and reflection really, in terms of themes.”
It’s been a little while since we interviewed any bands from New Zealand, so we asked Shaun for his thoughts on their local scene. He told us: “The scene is pretty strong at the moment – there are lots of great NZ rock and metal bands. There’s passionate support for local bands and some great venues across the country. I imagine it’s pretty similar to most places for new bands…a case of getting out and playing some support shows, networking with other bands and working to get your music out and grow your fan base.
“In terms of great NZ bands at the moment, here are a few favourites: Shihad, a mainstay in the NZ rock scene for decades and arguably NZ’s best live band; Villainy, great melodies and big stadium rock sound; Coridian, progressive hard rock with killer riffs and soaring vocals; Crooked Royals, progressive metalcore; Ekko Park, anthemic and melodic rock; and Sea Mouse, an alternative blues rock trio. We’ve actually created a great NZ Rock Playlist that might be of interest to your readers, 70 songs, 4 hours worth of new NZ rock music and a few classics thrown in.” And if you want to hear more about Crooked Royals, check out our interview with them from 2018.
There’s much more to come from This Silent Divide, starting with a new single Morning, which will be released next Friday (28 July). They also have a few gigs coming up over the next few months and they’re already back into songwriting mode and throwing song ideas around as a band, so expect even more new music soon.
You can follow This Silent Divide on Facebook and Instagram, and check out their music on Spotify, Bandcamp, Apple Music and YouTube.
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