Like standing on a ragged hillside and roaring up into the depths of a raging thunderstorm in hope of relief, Conquering—the demolishing, new full-length album from the U.K.’s metal torchbearers Employed To Serve—is powerful.
The record, out this September through Spinefarm Records, is simultaneously staggeringly heavy and refreshingly forceful, with shock wave guitars, explosive drums, and more, combining to deliver a jolting push forward.
Structurally, Conquering feels inclined towards straightforwardness, leading up to blasting breakdowns at the end of tracks including “World Ender” and album closer “Stand Alone.” The textures that Employed To Serve utilize here are on par with what vocalist Justine Jones identifies as “straight-up metal,” and the band’s broad, booming sound proves expansive.
It’s easy to imagine a communally energizing live experience, as the band employ an especially crushing and uniquely poignant iteration of familiarly hard-hitting heavy metal. The music feels anthemic—it’s fiery, yet the triumphantly commanding rhythms soar.
Basically—it’s fun! Certainly, there’s a lot more to Conquering than that element of the experience alone, but the generally uplifting energy seems undeniable. The record is gritty and grounded, with some serious force providing the foundation for these songs, but that volatile and energizing facet of the album shines.
A theme of empowerment helps define Conquering, as the ferocious record sounds geared towards providing boosts of both physical and emotional energy. The musical force is impactful enough that something like a personal breakthrough seems built right into the experience, and Jones also explores these ideas with her lyrics, which she delivers via passionately intense vocals.
Below, check out what Jones has to say about the new album—including a comparison of the band to spin instructors. For Conquering, Jones performs alongside guitarist and vocalist Sammy Urwin, guitarist David Porter, bassist Nathan Pryor, and drummer Casey McHale.
You guys have made a lot of music at this point. Are there specific creative sparks that come to mind that kept you going into this new album process?
We tend to find writing albums pretty easy, or at least [guitarist/ vocalist] Sammy [Urwin] does. He’s our main songwriter. And we were so lucky where we were at in our album cycle, because we literally just sort of almost finished [2019’s] Eternal Forward Motion.
Usually, album cycles are about two years for us, but obviously a year got cut off. But we were just quite inspired to write, because we came off tour, forced to stay at home, so it just seemed like a perfect time to sort of be productive and write the album. And since we have a new lineup, we were quite ready to go and excited to start the new chapter as a band.
When exactly did those new folks join up with you guys?
Our bassist had already been in the band for about a year before the pandemic. So, he’s like our third-oldest member—quite funny. And so, the other two, Casey [McHale] and David [Porter], our new drummer and guitarist, they joined just before the pandemic. David was supposed to do the E.U. leg of our headline tour, which got cut short, so the first show he ever played with us was at Download Festival. We did the pilot—so props to him for that being his first show with us. Bless him.
Do you imagine that you guys would still be kicking along as Employed To Serve 10 years down the road?
I think so. I just love playing in a band, and I can’t imagine not doing it. Whether or not it would be as busy as it is now in 10 years, I guess it’s hard to see into the future, but I’ll always want to be in a band and perform because it’s just my favorite hobby.
It’s my hobby at the end of the day. Some people garden or paint, and I yell in a band. I can’t imagine any life without it. So, yeah, I reckon we’ll be still kicking around in a good 10 years’ time.
On your new record, the sound is pretty booming at times, like a sort of classic metal vibe. Did you as a band intentionally lean into that sort of thing?
We wanted to write a whole different record from [2017’s The] Warmth [of a Dying Sun] and Eternal Forward Motion. I feel like they are different, but I feel like they’re sort of along a similar line. So, for this record, with the new lineup, we wanted to take the opportunity to really refresh our sound, and really hone into the aspects that we loved of our previous materials.
Songs like “Force Fed,” “I Spend My Days”—those kinds of songs are super fun to play live for us. And so, we just really sat and honed-in on concentrating on writing more songs like that, and stuff that first-time listeners can get involved with.
Because I feel like with our more mathy material, with pushes and pulls—it’s quite hard to get into on first listen, whereas these new songs, I feel like they’re more geared up towards festivals and bigger venues, because they’re just more translatable, I feel. So hopefully, that will be a self-fulfilling prophecy, and we’ll play stadiums.
In terms of inspiration, you guys seem relatively connected with communities of your peers, so to speak, and there are also other reference points, of course. How do you guys balance inspiration with forging your own path?
I think we’re pretty good at sort of putting the blinders on and concentrating on what we’re doing. We’re definitely very connected with our peers. Obviously running Church Road Records as well as being in a band. But we find it quite easy to stick to what we’re doing.
As I’ve gotten older, as well, I’m a lot better at not comparing ourselves. Because when I was first started in a band, you do that whole childish thing of comparing yourself to others, and you’re just like: Oh, I wanted that tour. But now it’s a lot more fun, and I just get happy when our friends are doing well.
It’s just kind of nice to be a part of a community of bands, because it’s a very lonely place, being like a singular entity, you know? It’s just a lot of fun. We just like going to support our friends. We just kind of feel like it’s part of a real movement at the moment of new bands. You got bands like Power Trip, Code Orange killing it in the U.S., and over here, you’ve got Svalbard, Palm Reader, Conjurer, Venom Prison. There’s so many great bands that sort of started up around roughly the same sort of era that we did. So, it’s nice—it’s great to be a part of that.
Are there sonic areas that you would like to see explored or that you would like to explore as a band?
I feel like there’s a gap for straight-up metal bands. Not in a traditional, Dio, dragons, and stuff like that [way], but just sort of something that is specifically geared up just for like heavy metal festivals, rather than things that mix hardcore and things like that.
So, that’s something we kind of tried to try our hand at. We definitely wanted to be thought of more as a straight-up metal band now. Because I feel like we fully explored the weird crossover, sort of hardcore/metal sound that we did on our last three albums. So really, we just want to concentrate on sort of going that avenue, and just trying to play as many fun metal festivals as possible.
It’s obviously very good not to be pigeonholed, and it’s not something that we want—to be pigeonholed, but sometimes you do run the risk of people not really knowing where to place you. They argue over what you are, and things like that. So, it’s kind of nice to feel a bit more like: Oh, we’re a metal band now. We’re not like a post- something, hardcore, metalcore—whatever genre. It’s quite nice now, I think.
At least in the end, this record seems geared towards something like empowerment. Is that something that you intentionally dialed into?
One hundred percent. We wanted it to be more of a PMA kind of album—without misconstruing it as a hardcore “Yeah!” It has got the darker themes, like mental health and struggling with it. But it’s got an overtone of—you can do anything if you put your mind to it; just put those blinders on and concentrate on being the best version of yourself as possible.
Because I just felt like, especially with everything going on in the world at the moment, no one needs to be told how bad everything is. You just need your little cheerleader in your headphones, going like: You can do this! I feel like a huge record for me that was a big kind of like—“Oh, this is a sick album, it’s so positive,” is Hatebreed’s Perseverance. That album is a perfect blend of heavy but with positive lyrics. It was just nice, and I quite like how outsiders think that metal’s really negative and angry, but then it has positive lyrics, going like—you can achieve your dreams.
There are loads of bands that are proper miserable that I love, but it’s so against our personalities as people as well. We all laugh at shit stuff that happens—you just have to sort of laugh, and have a bit of a sense of humor, like: “Oh, well, that failed, let’s try again.” So, I kind of feel it suits us more as people, because I’ve always really struggled with the sort of tough persona on stage—the kind of unsmiling thing. It’s kind of nice and more true to ourselves I think, having that energetic positivity. We’re like spin instructors.
Not to the exclusion of more dour themes that have been artistically expressed elsewhere, would you say that you would like to see more of that empowering vibe within heavy music?
I think so—only if it’s genuine, though. Art is such a personal and important thing to some people. I would never want them to be disingenuous to themselves. But it’d be nice. I want more albums like Hatebreed’s Perseverance in my ears when I’m at the gym or if I’ve had a bad day. I think there’s quite a few albums that are like that—more is always good because everyone’s always going to need a pick-me-up one day.
Ultimately, would you say that the live experience weighs prominently on the way that you put the songs together?
For sure. Obviously, we didn’t force it, but we definitely considered how it would translate to a live audience. We wanted songs where it would translate well to a festival crowd, where they’ve just seen us, they’re drunk, and they just want to get involved. There’s some crowd participation kind of stuff. And also, just at our headline shows, we just want people to have fun with it, like blow off some steam and hopefully have a good time.
Overall, are there specific themes that you’d like to shine through for listeners?
I think the main sort of meaning behind like the album title, Conquering, is pushing your ego aside, and being like—it’s OK to be down in the dumps. It’s OK to fail, and stuff like that. But you’ve just got to pick yourself up again, and try again, and keep striving forward, and not take yourself too seriously.
Because, I feel like, especially in a world of social media and things like that, it’s so easy to put on a front and be like—oh, I’m only doing excellent things. It’s like with lockdown—everyone was posting about all the great stuff they were doing. You don’t have to be that way. As long as you feel like you as a person are growing, and you are better than you were yesterday, then you’re already achieving a lot. I think it’s important to not lose sight of that.
Watch the video for “Exist” here:
For more from Employed To Serve, find them on Bandcamp.
Photo courtesy of Employed To Serve and Andy Ford
