VOYAGER ENTER A VIBRANT NEW ERA
Aussies announce bold seventh album and prepare for a series of UK preview shows.
Voyager celebrate signing to Season Of Mist with the release of Colours In The Sun on November 1.“We’ve been on a bit of a journey over the last three albums but the new material is the most Voyager-sounding yet,” says guitarist Simone Dow.“It’s a real mix of pop, synthwave and heavy riffs, and we’re really proud of it. It has a very colourful sound and we wanted to represent that through the cover artwork as well. Ash [Doodkorte, drums] composed it from shots of sunsets in Perth.”
The vibrant 10-track merges the Perth band’s wide array of influences from 80s pop and 90s electronic dance to djent, psych and 70s prog.
“The single Colours In The Sun was actually influenced by Steve Winwood – that’s where Danny [Estrin, vocals] was going for the chorus. Danny’s the one who always comes up with the big, banging choruses,” says Dow. “Quite a few of us are huge Muse fans too so it’s no accident there’s some of that in there, and from a guitar perspective, TesseracT and Leprous were definitely a huge influence on us – we love those guys. We like the contrast of heavy and dark with the brightness; people will hear a lot of that on the album.”
Leprous’ influence also runs through the track Entropy which includes guest vocals from the Norwegian band’s singer Einar Solberg.
“We already had the song and thought, ‘We can really hear Einar singing on this, his voice would really suit it.’ Danny just shot him a message and he loved the song. We were absolutely stoked,” says the guitarist. “When we got the vocals back from him we were just like, ‘Wow!’ It was completely different to how we had it, he’d put his own spin on it and we were just absolutely blown away.”
Voyager head to the UK this September for five shows, which includes a performance at London’s Space Rocks. They’ll also headline Germany’s Euroblast and ProgPower Europe in the Netherlands. Dow is particularly looking forward to performing the new material on stage.
“[The title track] is really good fun to play live. I love Saccharine Dream and I think people are gonna go wild because it’s so different for us. The best songs to play live are the ones that will make people bounce and sing along.” NRS
For the full list of tour dates and more information visit www.voyagerau.com.
“The single Colours In The Sun was influenced by Steve Winwood.”