SKYHARBOR // Fighting The Hard Fight

It’s crazy just how popular post-hardcore is in India, and how underground it is. It’s also crazy how many bands are climbing from the cracks of late—Skyharbor is shooting for the mainstream now more than ever.

Despite a six-year tenure, the melodic post-hardcore sway of the Indian-American hybrids latest album Sunshine Dust, is Skyharbor at their best and is absolutely gripping. “There’s definitely a wave of experimentalism that seems to be grabbing people,” says guitarist Keshav Dhar. “People just want to take risks and do things that haven’t necessarily been done, I think that’s a good thing.

“In general in India, it’s always been the norm to play things a little safe but it seems no things are changing quite drastically, so I’m happy about that.”

Drastic changes are certainly real in Sunshine Dust. It defies convention and is a beautiful reflection of the trials and tribulations Skyharbor experienced through the four-year writing process. “Firstly we lost a singer and a drummer after our last release [Guiding Lights, 2014]—losing a drummer was okay, but losing a singer. When Dan [Tompkins], who sings for TesseracT now, he was the only one who wrote vocals for the band.

“We would write the music, send it to him, he’d do his things with the lyrics and vocals, we didn’t interfere. But once Eric [Emery] came on board, his process was the exact opposite. It was a collaborative process that took time to get used to.”

Talking, discussing, the back and forth because of the Skyharbor’s member’s various global locations, Sunshine Dust wasn’t an easy ride. “This was one of those things where I realised just how difficult it is for an artist to mix their own material because it’s so hard to be objective, Dhar says, frankly. “You’re so biased because you’re always thinking of the point of view of the musician who wrote the song.

The songs can be chaotic, heavy, and dense, much like India is!
[KESHAV]

“In this case, because I produce other music for other artists, I found I was struggling to mix the album because I wasn’t objective – we struggled with it for a while. We were okay with it but we weren’t overjoyed with it.”

Right when Skyharbor were on tour with Deftones in 2017, they announced the album but doubted their commitment to the then final product. “We asked ourselves, ‘Is this really the right thing to do?’ At every step of the way there was some sort of catastrophic climb we had to overcome.”

They got there in the end and as Dhar so enthusiastically confirms, Sunshine Dust is very much a product of what they’re into. “We’re huge fans of the Australian prog scene, the big four, Butterfly Effect, Karnivool, Dead Letter Circus, Cog—that’’ the reason we came to Australia to record, we wanted the album to sound Australian.”

Now he’s said it, the influences of those Aussie greats is particularly obvious in single Dim – not something you’ll grab on your first listen for the captivating spirit you hear. “As it turns out, Luke [Palmer] from Dead Letter Circus was co-producing the album. He’s done everything, literally done production for all four Aussie heavyweights of prog.

“We knew from the beginning this was the sound we wanted – but to touch back on the cohesive nature, like a band is playing, I think that’s one thing we missed on our last album. It sounds great, not like it’s been done in a karaoke way, but it’s not got that band jamming in a room vibe.

“We didn’t want to sound perfect and gridlocked and quantised and so digitally edited to the point where it sounds like a computer was playing it, which is something we did in the past.”

“One of the first things Forrester [producer, Forrester Savell] asked us was what we felt we liked in our previous recording—I told him, we want to sound like a band playing together. He said, “if that’s what you want, just play together!’”

There’s arguably no defining characteristic to Skyharbor’s sound that could pinpoint as them being from India, they’re entirely influenced by Western mainstream metal. “It would be a fallacy to say we sound Indian, we definitely don’t,” says Dhar. “It’s not something I think it’s necessarily objectively a good or bad thing, we’ve grown up on a steady diet of, yeah, I guess you could call it Western music.

“If anything, the role that coming from India plays in the making of the music is a very subliminal thing and not anything to do with the sound directly. It’s more to do with the general vibe that there’s a little bit of chaos! The songs can be chaotic, heavy, and dense, much like India is!”