Many would have had their first encounter with The Comfort on their debut EP, Love, featuring tracks such as “Deprime” and “Love & Other Drugs“, which saw the group see a quick rise to notoriety. “All of a sudden we were sending CDs to people in Germany, UK and US. It came out of nowhere for us, it was this huge thing that maybe didn’t shock us as we thought our music was good enough.“, discusses vocalist and bassist Dominic Harper. And with that the quartet had the weight of expectation placed on them, the following years including the response to debut record, What It Is To Be, challenged the core of the project. “I don’t think we should have ever let it get to us as much as it did and that is what lead to us saying “maybe we should call it a day” or relaunch as a new project. I’m glad we stuck with it as we’ve come out the other side appreciating our fans more than ever, they make everything we do worth it“. Which has now lead The Comfort to their upcoming record, Experience Everything. Live And Die.
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With their upcoming record, there is a confidence that The Comfort have found their sound that will see fans of previous records pleased, “We wanted to explore the way we write music differently with production elements and a different approach to processing our emotions. We found a way with this record to tying that in a bit more“. With the inspiration of nuance and depth present in the record coming from bodies of work by Taking Back Sunday and Dangerous Summer, “You sit with those records for five years and you’re still hearing parts that you’ve not noticed, now we are trying to bring those parts of what we love about music into this record“. With streaming playlists and social media platforms such as TikTok shifting music into a direction of limited attention span, there could be the suggestion that Experience Everything. Live And Die. treads a traditional path. “We grew up when it was about an album, so I write albums. There’s a bigger area to express yourself in, with It Is To Be for example, there are still moments on record but you just have to find them and they’re not in your face for the sake of it.” adds vocalist and guitarist Liam Holmes.
“For us, these things are there but we’re not going to force feed it to you as we are all adults here“, continues Liam. Evident in their most recent single “Love Is A Dying Plant“, it’s a track of intricacies that with multiple listens allows the listener to explore its roots of historical The Comfort alongside the blossoming new influences they bring in. Across the record, each track has its own intentional unique characteristics, “The one change we have made, we’ve tried to make every song something that we love. If that’s the song people choose to listen to we will be happy with it“. With Liam later adding, “Each song now hopefully has more dynamics and a journey through them“.
What else is evident is the growth the unit have gone through over the years, as we all do, “For us, no matter the selection of songs at the end of the day, they’re coming from the same place of truth, understanding and improvement. That’s another different thing from Love until now, if I’m writing the same songs that I was writing when I was 19 then that’s a problem for myself“. Looking up to the aforementioned Dangerous Summer and their songwriter AJ, “We gravitate to the lyrics because they’re truthful and questioning his place. That for us has become the most important thing for The Comfort, it’s about being truthful and smart about it. As long as your intentions are from that place, it’s always about having a theme that connects itself“.
The variety on the record sonically will allow listeners to dive into and each one to come out the other side their own favourite tracks. “There are songs such as “Bloom” which is quite poppy then tracks like “Conformist” and “The Portal“, which have a screaming feature on there but it makes senses in the context of the album.“. With Dom adding, “There’s tracks in there that can be seen as raw rocky types, such as “Love Is A Dying Plant”. It’s almost like this classic “The Comfort” song, where it’s this straight rocky song with these melodic verses, raw aggression into the bridge. You do still get all these layers happening, they’re the parts that we don’t intentionally add in but they happen while we’re recording or writing.” There is a pride to what they have created with Experience Everything. Live And Die., that will see the record is good stead ahead of its release and what is to come next, “We’ve ended up with something we’re thrilled about and it’s invigorated us and now we’re already trying to piece together the next thing.“, Liam concludes.
Within Experience Everything. Live And Die.’s vinyl booklet contains a section on “How To Experience This Record“, opening with “We believe that to truly experience and connect with the present moment, we need to be intentional with how we connect with our senses“. It lays out which environment the upcoming record is best listened to, ranging from breathing, smell and space, there is a thought out explanation for each step. Originating from an overwhelming sense of how to best listen to major records in their life, Dom explains, “When this came around, I want to be able to tell someone that is feeling the same way, how we think they should listen to it and listen intentionally.“. Further adding, “The record is about experiencing things in life, it was fitting to really try and describe it in a way to our fans and listeners, that we want you to listen to this with everything and meditate on it. That’s the best way to experience our music and the best way to experience music as a whole“. With this the meticulous nature of the record’s creation comes to the forefront, and each of the these details The Comfort wants listeners to pick up, “There are still all these decisions to be made in the order you listen to something in, how one song after another is going to make you feel. When you think back to your favourite albums, you hear the end of one track and even if the next track hasn’t started you hear that guitar of the following track. You start to associate these things with your favourite albums that the artist intended right from the start“.
With members of The Comfort writing music together since they were 14 and now several years deep into this project, experience sits on their side for what is to come. Dealing with testing times between records and vinyl delays potentially pushing the record back to 2023. The Australian unit are now a position where they can meet their potential and have the mindset to go with it, with Liam articulating, “What we wanted to make sure of is to hit the ground running, we didn’t want three false starts. We wanted to make sure that when we were back, we were back for good“. With fewer doubts in their minds about their future and sound, the quiet confidence of The Comfort will likely see a strong fruition in the Australian summer for them this November.
Experience Everything. Live And Die. will release November 11th via Greyscale Records.