SEVSONS // Do You Hear What I Hear

Like a stone gathering moss, Sevsons are on a roll—from a sold out support slot with Caligula’s Horse at the end of last year to their debut album Ad Infinitum amassing intense critical acclaim when it was released earlier this year, all this has paved the way for their first international support slot with progressive rock giants Haken this weekend. “Our ground game as a band has been really strong, says frontman Rhys Weeks.

Sevson have also just dropped tasty little single Myopia from an as yet unnamed upcoming EP to mark the occasion. Okay, Myopia is neither tasty nor little—it’s a gnarly echo of droning guitars that pave the way for some jagged heavy rock, revealing a band not afraid of turning to natural sounds that take control of your senses. “We’ve been sitting on this for a little while, trying to figure out who we wanted to mix and master it,” says Weeks. “We worked with Stevie Knight [The Dead Love] from Electric Sun Studios late last year and the timing [to release] was right.

“I think it’s a refined sound, it’s what we were getting to—with the debut album, that was us learning what we could write, what did we think we did well. With Myopia it was, we know what we can do, what we want to do. Working with these producers we get much more force in the sound—the depth of the song is much more than what it was on the album.

“We’ve always been based around big riffs and big choruses. When we started we wanted to have massive choruses like stadium rock kinda feel, and just a lot of riffs instead of being one of those prog bands that use a lot of ambience.”

With all the care and time put into the production of the single, Weeks seems very intent on the production side of things—makes one wonder just how Sevsons will maintain that big sound and those big riffs and still leave people as impressed by the live performance as they are with the studio single. “Everything we’ve recorded on there hasn’t been embellished in a way that we can’t reproduce on stage,” says Weeks, “When I speak about bringing out the sound in a production sense, it’s very hard to record something live and get it to even sound full and proper.

“What we found, especially from the first album is that they [songs] sound way better live on stage. I think that’s what happens when you’re working with a producer as talented as Stevie is. It’s not a fuss to recreate that live, it’s just part and parcel of what we do.”

Sevsons play with Haken on September 30 at The Factory Theatre, Sydney.
Order exclusive ticket bundle here.