Introducing: Recall The Remains

British melodic metalcore band Recall The Remains serve up a groovy, engaging and powerful metal sound that they describe as “melodic, heartfelt and brutal.”

The Telford and Derby-based quintet is formed of long-time friends Jacob Collins (vocals), Jordan Barnes (bass and clean vocals), Rob Fulton-Hamilton and Elliot Rowe (guitars) and Anthony Morris (drums), who love playing music together. The band formed back in 2017 (and, looking at Facebook images, actually way before that), with Rob joining earlier this year after their previous guitarist departed.

He joined just in time for the band releasing their debut album Revenant at the start of this month, which followed on from 2021 EP Dead Dreams. On the album, they told us: “Very excited, it’s been a long time coming and we’re so happy that it’s finally been released. There were times we were questioning whether it would ever see the light of day, due to various delays. We’re so relieved everything came together the way that it did. We hope that it was worth the wait.”

The album is packed with engaging and diverse metalcore goodness. It starts with a cool stabbing riff and eerie synths in album opener Fairfield, which flows into vicious vocals and a creepy slow lick that flows into a big singalong chorus. That’s followed by the intense The Night Will Bleed, which features a powerful chorus, the lively, groove-heavy Fever Dreams, from which we love the cool bouncing riff and vicious screamed vocals, and the album’s excellent first single Darker Path, which you can check out in the video below, and contender for a personal favourite Lifetaker.

The band pick out Cerberus as one of their favourite tracks from the album, telling us: “It’s a high energy bouncy anthem with an emotional lyrical theme. Really fun to perform live.” It opens up with building guitars and a pulsing synth, which drops into slightly sinister vocals that feeds into a big catchy chorus. Bouncy guitars kick in and drop into another creepy verse, which intensifies with heavier vocals and stabbing guitars setting up another big chorus. It goes much darker with intense vocals and a variety of stabbing guitars teeing up a big final chorus. Check it out in the video here:

The band also tell us that the album’s closing track Brothers Until Betrayal is one they’re particularly excited for people to hear. They told us: “It’s one of our most experimental tracks we’ve written. We stepped out of our comfort zone, and we can’t wait for people to hear it.” It opens up with cool flitting guitars and rolling drums that give way to intense vocals with a cool high-pitched lick and heavy guitar chords in support. That ends with a vicious growl and the fun guitars return before feeding into a singalong chorus “I thought you were my brother, A stranger I now see,” which drops straight into another intense verse. The track intensifies with big screams that give way to clean vocals and heavy guitars that drop into light guitars in a moment of calm led by spoken and backing vocals. That sets up a really cool version of the chorus with layered vocals as the track brings the album to an atmospheric conclusion. Give it a listen through the stream here:

On the album as a whole, the band told us: “The reception so far has been incredible. We’ve been blown away by all of the kind things that everyone has been saying. It genuinely warms our hearts.

“We all have full=time jobs as well playing 30 to 40 live shows a year, so one of the biggest challenges was finding the times when we were all available to book out studio time. We were very lucky that our producer was very accommodating with our busy schedule. Tracking can also be challenging at times, especially if something changes mid-way through the recording process, and we all have to learn new parts/structures. There was one instance where Jordan had to learn how to play a fretless bass on the fly.”

The Recall The Remains sound is influenced by a wide variety of music and genres, including the likes of While she Sleeps, Killswitch Engage, Currents, Whitechapel, Lamb of God, Nightwish, Slipknot, Bullet For My Valentine, Ghost and Rammstein.

And on what inspires them to write music, they explain: “One recurring theme throughout our music is grief. The songs Darker Path and Cerberus are lyrically connected because they both address loss and the five stages of grief.”

Recall The Remains are busy preparing for the Revenant tour to promote the album across the UK and, if things go well, potentially outside the UK. The UK tour starts at The Giffard Arms in Wolverhampton on 27 June, with gigs nationwide over the next few months, culminating in playing The Dev in London on 26 October. They’ve already started writing album number two and have plans to get into the studio early next year, so it’s very unlikely there’ll be a four-year wait between records this time around.

And they added: “If you want to keep up with what we’re doing, then follow us on any of our social pages. We hope to see any of you reading this at a show in the future, and a massive thank you to anyone who took the time to read this interview.”

You can follow Recall The Remains on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and check out their music on Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube.