“I wouldn’t necessarily say this record is about vengeance against men,” says Sarah Ann McLachlan, vocalist of Toronto-turned-Finland-based epic doom metal band, Smoulder. “It’s more vengeance against abusers. The last couple of years, the pandemic made everyone in the whole world reconceptualize and reply think about their priorities, and one of the biggest takeaways, for me especially, experiencing the pandemic as a chronically ill person, was realizing that a large swath of society finds people like me disposable and not worth changing habits for. When you spend a year at home by yourself, not knowing what is happening and what will happen, it can be a very sad, isolating time.”
Smoulder’s sophomore album, Violent Creed of Vengeance, out now via Cruz Del Sur Music, is a triumphant return for the band. The album builds on the foundation of their 2018 debut, Times of Obscene Evil and Wild Daring, with even more powerful vocals from McLachlan, soaring guitar leads, and epic melodies. And the lyrics focus on rage against those who would do harm, in a very powerful way.
For Smoulder in particular, the pandemic was devastating. The band had just made it big in the European doom scene, leaning more towards that sound despite originally hailing from Toronto, and had landed a European tour. Instead, the pandemic hit, and the band got stuck in Greece. It was also a transitional time for the band, as McLachlan and her partner in life and in the band, guitarist Shawn Vincent, relocated to Finland.
“A lot of what I had the time to think about during the pandemic was abuse, sexual abuse that myself or people I love have experienced, not just in metal but in the world at large,” she says. “It’s frustrating that there are so often no repercussions for abusers, and I think I was trying to process all that while also being stuck in this word space of not really seeing people.”
This line of thinking caused McLachlan to fall into a deep depression coupled with writer’s and creative block, but eventually, she began writing and drawing again; the floodgates opened, and the concept for the new album came out.
“This album is about being hopeless and then being like, ‘I’m going to fucking do something about it,’” she explains. We don’t get that many stories about strong women, so we need to be the heroes in our own stories. We need that power. The community of heavy music needs these stories, as does the world and society at large.”
When it comes to the music, the band have elevated their sound even more since their last album, something McLachlan and company are very proud of.
“I think there has been a pretty big leap in quality, consistency, and progression and exploration on this album,” she says. “The dudes and myself all worked really hard on making this album more interesting, more progressive, with more solos, more vocal variation. We really pushed ourselves to our limit, and I think you can hear that on the record. I think that’s saying something because our debut was exceptionally well-received, but I think this surpasses it.”
