The roots of new Seattle trio Calm Collapse go back to the ’90s when the band’s frontman, Doug Lorig (guitar/vocals) played in emo/math rock unit Roadside Monument, who were signed to indie rock label Tooth & Nail Records, and existed off and on until 2003. His musical journey after that led him through a number of different bands—Raft of Dead Monkeys, Black Eagle, Patrol—until he recently met drummer Rob Smith of Traindodge (another noted indie rock band) with the intention of doing something heavier. Bassist Jon Pease (of Medicine Bows) was the final piece of the Calm Collapse puzzle. If the members’ backgrounds seem like the makings of an unlikely fit for Decibel coverage, give a listen to “Positive Greed.”
The track’s sludgy, drop-tuned opening riff segues into Lorig’s distorted, impassioned vocals as the band rumbles through a cavalcade of heavy, twisty sections. “Positive Greed” settles into an expansive, melodic landscape filled with Soundgarden-inspired guitar work and post-metal dynamics, going from bruising to haunting effortlessly. The nearly six-minute song is the first single from Calm Collapse’s Matt Bayles-produced (Mastodon, Isis) debut for Spartan Records, Mirrored Nature, which is set for release November 25. The album can be preordered here.
This is what Lorig had to say about the track:
“I started writing that song about six or seven years ago. I had joined a doom band called Giza and I was learning a bunch of their songs because they had a record coming out and a couple of shows at about the same time. They had wanted to primarily concentrate on playing the album material, but after a couple of shows, the other new guitarist William (who’d been in These Arms Are Snakes and Harkonen) and I started bringing in some new song ideas.
“I had an acoustic guitar in my living room. I had to tune it way down to A. I had been listening to a bunch of old Soundgarden and Melvins, so I started coming up with the basic parts, but they were way slower and slightly different. After those couple of shows, the drummer abruptly quit, so we never worked on it. When me a Rob started playing together in Calm Collapse, I tuned it up and made it more upbeat. It went through some transformation.
“When going into the studio, it was the last song of vocals over a three day weekend of non-stop overdubs, guitar doubles and vocals for me. I was pretty fried by the time we got to this one. In fact, I was probably pretty grouchy. But I got through it and when the roughs came back, we knew this had to be the first song on the album.”
