Soulkeeper

Last year, Soulkeeper announced their signing to Pure Noise with the label’s reissue of their debut album, Holy Design. Now, the Minnesota outfit—guitarist Scott Gilmore, bassist Edwin Melendez, drummer Tom Jenson and vocalist Eric Roberts—have returned with their first new music since in the form of new EP Join Us In Creating Excellence. That title is taken from the infomercial in Darren Aronofsky’s 2000 film Requiem For A Dream that helps drive Sara Goldfarb crazy, in which its host gets a rabid crowd to chant “JUICE”—an acronym for that phrase—over and over again. While these four songs aren’t based on the movie, a sound clip from that informercial does introduce the extreme, caustic title track that begins this EP, and its four songs certainly emulate the trippy and paranoid, delusional and disturbing nature of that fever dream within the fever dream.

But that’s not the only rabbit hole this powerful and brutal EP sends you down. Second track “Go Ask Alice” starts with a distorted, warped sample of Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” it blasts into existence, and there are plenty of typically idiosyncratic and experimental moments that Soulkeeper fans have come to expect. Both of those tracks have incredibly jarring break-downs in the middle, where they stop abruptly to be replaced by some unlikely electronic ambience. Even for Soulkeeper, these switches feel as if they’ve been taken to the extreme, which of course makes them all the more powerful. Beyond that, the intense metalcore of “Reality Bytes” is permeated with glitchy undertones and overtones throughout, while final track “Smile Because It Happened” is a relentless assault that’s violently discombobulating from start to end. But then, that’s to expected from this band by now. Buoyed by the reaction to re-release of Holy Design, Soulkeeper set out to both capitalize and build on that response, but also see what other, new directions they could go in.

“Every time I write something,” says Gilmore, “it’s important for it to be better than the last thing. It also needs to reflect whatever I’m feeling at the time, and at the time I just wanted to do more stuff that people said they liked about Holy Design—all the electronics and the mathiness that make us stand out—so I leaned into that even more.”

“We wanted to give them more of that confusion,” adds Roberts. “This EP has more electronic ambience, but it’s also so much heavier, and it has all the cool parts that people liked about Holy Design.”
Produced by Jonathan Dolese, Join Us In Creating Excellence serves as a powerful next step for the band, albeit a short and sweet one. Clocking in at just 10-and-a-half minutes, the EP delivers everything it needs to, but leaves you wanting more the moment it finishes. That was very much by design—in fact, it’s the exact reason final track “Smile Because It Happened” takes its name from that famous Dr Seuss quote.

“I think these four songs are perfect for getting a taste of what’s to come,” says Gilmore. “I wanted to name the last song that because I thought it would be cool if anyone says ‘We need more music!’ we can bring up the phrase ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’ It’s short, but it’s good.”

It’s not just good. It’s very good. Holy Design might have been the crystallization and solidification of the band’s line-up, but this EP demonstrates how the chemistry between the members has only gotten better, resulting in music that’s more confident, more chaotic, more weird, more wild, more experimental—and yet, somehow more cohesive and complete than ever.

“Everyone’s getting more comfortable within their roles,” says Jenson. “We really focused on what worked well with the last album and doubled down on that with these songs, and I think that’s definitely a by-product of that. A lot of what I learned after Holy Design was reworking parts while staying true to the initial idea and image, so I definitely felt a lot more comfortable this time around with the writing style and process.”

“The longer we write together,” adds Roberts, “the more in-tune it feels, and the more I understand how to write vocals to these weird parts. And I really like to make the weird parts weird, so that the not-weird parts stick out more, if that makes sense.”

“We were listening to the fans as well as the haters,” quips Gilmore. “And just apologizing to the haters and letting them know that we’re maturing, we’re sorry, and we’re trying to be better.”
Jokes aside, an interesting development with this EP is how Soulkeeper have continued to expand their sonic horizons and increase the breadth of their experimentation while deliberately shortening their songs. Compared to their earlier EPs especially, these four tracks are much shorter, yet just as dense, just as complex, just as much a fusion of different sounds and genres. It all combines to create an EP that both cements the band’s reputation of being on the cutting edge of the heavy music world, and flings the door open for whatever might come next.

“We’ve been trying to stay within the two-and-a-half minute mark for these,” says Gilmore. “It’s challenging, but it’s a good feeling when we actually manage.”

“Most of the tracks on the EPs are very long,” adds Roberts. “We played those songs for years and we hated doing it because they’re so long. A two-and-a half-minute song of really chaotic, crazy stuff is the ideal length that you want to be listening to something like that for.”

“Honestly, if I see a five minute or longer song when we play live now, it legitimately stresses me out,” laughs Jenson.

Welcome then, to the latest iteration of Soulkeeper. It may just be a stepping stone on the way to the next record, but it’s no less important for that. It’s all part of their journey to make the most unpredictable, out-there music that they can, and a perfect representation of the unpredictable force of nature that the band is.

“I like being in the band that nobody knows what to expect from,” says Roberts. “It opens the door to a lot of creative freedom.”

“I’m hoping that even if someone’s not a huge fan of the subgenre, they can listen to the whole EP from start to finish and the whole time just be like ‘Oh, this is interesting, I’m going to keep listening until it’s over.’ I think that’s super doable and I think a strong suit of these four songs is keeping people’s interest for the ten and a half minutes.”

“I hope it changes the world and ends the wars,” smiles Melendez. “Every war will end because of this four song EP. No, I want it to be a good transition, but also feel familiar while getting a little edgier and pushing the boundaries every time.”

Tour Dates

Contact

Publicity:
US & UK: Hayley Connelly
Europe: Denise Pedicillo
AUS: Janine Morcos

Booking: Matt Andersen

Management: Garret Russel &
Nick Pocock

Latest Release

News & Updates