EVERY HELL
Rising from the ashes of Black Peaks, this is where Tool meet Twenty One Pilots
The end of Brighton post-metallers Black Peaks was understandably painful for Will Gardner. “It hurt for a long time afterwards”, says the singer and guitarist of the demise of his former band in 2021. “And lockdown completely drove me insane.”
With both of those events receding the rear-view mirror, Will is pouring his energy into Every Hell. Black Peaks are part of the new band’s DNA – inevitable, given the presence of both Will and original Peaks bassist Andrew Gosden (the line-up is completed by keyboard player/guitarist Evelyn May and drummer Mark Roberts).
“Having Andrew is a big part of what we’re doing,” he says. “That heavy bass is at the core of everything.”
But Every Hell take Will’s old outfit as a jumping-off point to explore different musical avenues – “a continuation and an evolution”, as he puts it. The two tracks they’ve released so far – Freaking Out and The Watcher – strip back the proggy complexity in favour of a rawer and more direct approach.
“We’re inspired by a lot of Converge, Tool, Mastodon, but also [garage rockers] Death From Above 1979 and even Twenty One Pilots,” he explains. “It’s using melody and pop chord sequences, but playing them in a heavy fashion.”
The plan for the immediate future is to drop two more tracks and package them all together as an EP ahead of Every Hell’s appearance at Arctangent in August.
“They’re more proggy,” says Will of the new songs. “Much closer to that Peaks sound. But it’s early days. We’ve only been out in the world for five or six months now, so we’re still exploring.”