POLARIS are primed to return to Australian stages, today announcing a massive regional tour this June …
Weaving alt-metal magic with a brand new lineup in tow, Sydney’s SVLEM are taking no prisoners in the final months of 2022.
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And while their recent release The Live Session boasts two tracks showcasing the band’s bewitching might, the current new SVLEM backstory itself stems back to the group originally forming as a four piece in 2019 right before the grip of COVID grasped Australia, before ultimately embracing French vocalist Cécile via some virtual fate.
“It’s all blurry now, so many lockdowns,” Cécile shares of her entrypoint into the SVLEM story. “I had looked for a band for a long time, I’m originally from France, I was in a band called Kamera Obscura for roughly 10 years. And then life took me to Australia roughly four years ago. I looked for a long time for a new band while I was here, and it’s so funny, it’s like when you fall in love they always say: “It’s when you least expect it”, or when you’ve given up.”
“At that point, I was like: “Okay, I think I’m gonna stop music, I can’t find a band”. And in general I couldn’t find people who were like minded, with the same midsent, the same drive and motivation, things like that. But then I was on BandMix or something like that and I received a message from Josh, SVLEM’s drummer.”
In the midst of a hard lockdown, SVLEM drummer Josh approached Cécile to audition for the group – and it would ultimately take until after the band had cemented Cécile as their new vocalist and booked a gig before the new lineup actually finally met in person.
“Normally when you audition for a band, you would prepare a few songs and you would rock up in the studio, have a little jam and see if it fits vocally and if you fit as humans as well,” muses Cécile of her somewhat unorthodox entry into SVLEM. “But they sent me some songs and I recorded them from home on the same day and sent them back because I really liked what they were doing.”
“I just went for it and did my thing, and they liked it, which was really nice,” Cécile chuckles. “We were still in lockdown so we couldn’t rehearse, but we started planning things and we hadn’t even had our first rehearsal together yet when we were approached by Victoria K and Cameria to open for them on the tour. It was funny, I remember our guitarist was freaking out. He was like: “We haven’t been rehearsing together, what should we do?!”. And I was like: “Don’t worry, trust me, I will hit the ground running!”.
While seemingly a risk to commit to a gig without having ever been all together in the same room, the outcome was definitely worth any trepidation in the lead up.
“It was a big risk in some way,” muses Cécile, “but having been in my previous band for so long, I know that when I put my mind on something, generally I can make things happen. I think we had six rehearsals before the tour, and it went really, really well. We matched musically the way we work together, and also as people, we get along really well, which is equally important as the music to me.”
Recently unveiling their new solidified lineup with The Live Session, boasting two tracks Nevermore and Adore & Devour, there was a measured method to the idea to release live tracks to the world, as Cécile revealed.
“We came to the decision collectively,” says Cécile. “I think it was roughly after the tour, I was thinking: “What is the next step?”, because we hadn’t released anything yet with me and we also needed to bring a bit more of an audience. And the best way to do that would be to release something.”
Thinking about it, releasing a live session is a bit of insanity, It’s harder than the studio for sure because there’s no room for editing.
[ Cécile ]
“When I joined they had six or seven songs composed. Some of them had vocals, some of them didn’t, some of them I changed, some I left intact. For Nevermore it was just the music. So, I just had to come in, write the lyrics and write my vocals for it. And for Adore & Devour, that existed before me, but I rewrote the lyrics and the melody. The intro worked really well, but because the previous version was written by another woman, my experiences were different, and I feel more comfortable telling stories that I can relate to. I wanted to make it mine, and I think that’s what I did!”.
“Thinking about it, releasing a live session is a bit of insanity,” Cécile laughs. “It’s harder than the studio for sure because there’s no room for editing. And generally I put a lot of emphasis on entertainment and less on my vocals when I’m live, I get really carried away! It’s not as pretty, but it’s much more fun.”
Presenting some complexities for the band and requiring razor-sharp focus to get the best result possible, SVLEM settled on releasing The Live Session instead of an EP or album to allow time for the new lineup to settle. With fellow newcomer Shah joining the band approximately a month before Cécile, SVLEM have hit the throttle into overdrive on planning for their fresh new chapter together – and The Live Session purposefully was designed to declare the band’s whole package to the world.
“We have a lot of things going on right now, we’re currently in October, but before you know it – it’s going to be July next year,” Cécile says, musing about the upcoming SVLEM plan of attack going into the new year. “I always like to plan ahead. With The Live Session, we figured if we nailed it, we could send it to booking agents and venues and they can also judge how we’d be onstage. But it also wasn’t entirely the same energy, because I had to stay glued to my mic, I couldn’t go crazy or jump around or anything like that! But at least other people can get a sense of who they would hire. For listeners it’s great as well, and also it’s not the same massive cost of making a music video.”
Marking a career-first for Cécile, finally recording a live session, the long road to release for The Live Session paid off with the band also able to showcase their wares ahead of appearing later in October at Halloween Spookshow alongside Our Last Enemy, Witchgrinder and Carmeria at Sydney’s Burdekin Hotel. And for a band named after the historical site of the colonial witch trials in Massachusetts, SVLEM certainly bring some deliciously dark vibes to their sound; but there’s also a chameleonic brilliance to the SVLEM modus operandi.
“The upcoming show is definitely more on the heavy side,” says Cécile. “But that’s good because it shows that we can play with heavy bands and more melodic bands, we have this flexibility. You have to stay true to yourself, but you also need to adapt a bit, and especially when you’re playing to a different audience than usual. It’s a shorter set because we’re the opener, but we’ll be opening our set with a new song. It’s just gonna be an explosion from beginning to end, I’ll need to do a lot of cardio this month!”.
Stepping into a band whose pre-existing members favoured the likes of Trivium, Gojira and Spiritbox amongst many others, Cécile herself brings in a fresh new range of external influences from Black Sabbath and The Beatles to doomier fare like Dool, Cult of Luna, Brutus and Sinistro. And it’s this fresh and revitalised version of SVLEM that is set to continue to make waves in the local Australian scene that Cécile now calls home.
“Coming from Europe, especially from Paris, so far I am having a blast playing music in Australia,” says Cécile. “I think it’s amazing because for bands who are trying to emerge in France, it’s really hard because, pretty much even before lockdown, all the venues, the small ones were closing. It was really hard to organise gigs, if you couldn’t bring 500 or 700 people – you couldn’t play. And you can’t really play in pubs and stuff for heavy music, it’s more for indie bands and stuff like that. It was getting really hard over there, we were organising a lot of gigs with Kamera Obscura, but it was always a risk because we had to make sure we would get enough people coming.”
“In Paris, playing in a band felt like a luxury hobby. Things cost less, things like recording, mixing and mastering, so the costs might even out across the board here in Australia because here it costs an arm and a leg to do that. But honestly, so far here I’ve only had great experiences. In France, they feed you and they give you wine, which is very French. Here, they don’t necessarily feed you – but they pay you!”.
“I’m gonna touch wood but so far we haven’t been struggling to get gigs, and I’m so thankful to all of the bands and venues who have invited us,” Cécile concludes. “I find the Australian scene very positive, and people have been so welcoming having us on tours. Even when they hadn’t even heard me sing yet!”.
“I think the level of musicianship is really high here in Australia. If you go to a show or you’re part of a show, people stay and watch all of the bands and you’re getting slapped left, right and centre with such good music. I’m loving it.”
