Metal music does exist in Hawaii and Skylene is the band keeping it interesting

So this week’s Release Radar was incredibly interesting for me. A band I hadn’t thought of in years, called Skylene, released a new album out of nowhere, called Within My Vicinity. Over a decade ago, when I was still in high school, I came across them and their album, An Inadequate Object. This was right around the time bands like Volumes and Structures were getting big, which I like to call the “The Great Djent Migration.” Skylene was unfortunately a needle in a haystack, and got lost amongst all the other music coming out around this time. My best friend and I, though, were really good at finding small bands around then, and honestly I don’t even remember how we did come across them. All I remember is that they wrote a super solid album that sounded a lot like other bands I was into at the time, like early Erra (Andromeda EP kinda stuff). Then, amidst a perfectly normal album, was a song called “Pre-Cum.” I’d like to say that wasn’t the main thing I remembered about them, but come on, I was like 15 or something, that shit was funny.

Actually before I was even able to find the new album on my own, my brother sent it over to me on Friday saying, “Hey I found a band that’s super similar to the kind of stuff we like.” I clicked on the link he sent and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia. I went over to their first album and saw that fateful song, laughed my ass off about how funny that was in 2012 (and still is today), and then went on a little ride down memory lane. Say what you will about a song called Pre-Cum, the outro riff is wonderful and not filled with post-listen clarity.

Sometime after I re-listened to their first album and had my nostalgia kick, I actually put my sights on the new album, Within My Vicinity. Skylene really outdid themselves with this one, and even though I didn’t know I was waiting a decade to listen to it, it was well worth the wait. Somehow Skylene went from a band of the past to a more modern and heavy-hitting metalcore band of today seemingly overnight. The more likely explanation for this is that they’re from Honolulu, and “hawaii metalcore” is not something that I see being talked about very often. I like to imagine they’ve just been quietly thriving in Hawaii this entire time, but I honestly have no idea because they just flew under my radar. I did see while I was scanning through their Facebook page that they opened for Chelsea Grin, which seems like a big deal to me (funny enough, I saw Tom Barber at the last small local show I went to in Sacramento). I have seen live videos of Skylene, and there was a pretty impressive crowd, AND people were seriously moshing. It’s safe to say I underestimated the hawaii metalcore scene.

A lot of the tones in the guitar on the album sound like Surroundings, which is a band I have most likely talked about before. Some of the riffs and things in this album are the closest I’ve heard to Of Bane, Burden, and Change in years. I think the main thing in this album that reminds me of Surroundings is the kind of stop and start groove that they have; it’s really hard for me to explain it. You feel it the most in the last song on the album, which is also coincidentally the single they released prior to the album: Absence. The last two minutes of the song have this insane tag team between groove breakdown and beautiful melodic riff. I absolutely loved it and I hope everyone _{within my vicinity} while I was listening in my car with the windows down also loved it (sorry).

My favorite track on the album is for sure Chastised. It’s got a lot of those full-body chords that really fill me with energy, which I feel can only be described as “3-dimensional.” I’m not a guitarist, but I believe this comes from a power chord, but you add other notes of the corresponding scale to it so it sounds “fuller.” You hear it a lot in melodic hardcore as well as prog metal. One of my friends pointed out to me that the section around 3:30 (and the intro actually) has the same exact rhythm and sounds very similar to a section of the song Void by To Release. I haven’t talked about that band before on this site but that album has been at the top of my list for the past year or so. Anyway, I’m not sure if they meant to sound so similar but it’s pretty funny listening to it now. It just goes to show how it’s basically impossible not to write a song that’s similar to something else out there.

So even though I said before that I’d like to believe Skylene has been absolutely killing it out on their island, unfortunately it looks like they’ve been having a tough time with keeping the band together. Their vocalist, Damien Durazo, moved out of Hawaii several years ago and put a stop to them playing shows for awhile. He recently made a trip out there and they had a “reunion” of sorts and played a bunch of shows, including one with Escape The Fate. It was during this time that they finally released the album, which according to them was written and recorded awhile back and they were waiting for the right moment to release it. It’s a shame that they aren’t actively playing shows and making music anymore, but at the same time it’s sick that they were able to organize these shows recently and still release their album. I hope we get another one in 2034, because the world needs more guitarists like Julian Bozzeli. His style fits this melodic, passionate metalcore that I feel is super rare these days.

I also saw that Skylene has played some pretty high-profile shows for such an unknown band. Looking through their past, I saw they played on the 10-year anniversary tour for Constellations, by August Burns Red. Other than that they also opened for (like I mentioned before) Chelsea Grin, Wage War, Dance Gavin Dance, and even ERRA. It’s honestly kinda crazy that no one ever picked these guys up for a bigger tour, unless they just weren’t interested. I bet it was really sick to open for Erra, especially since their music is most likely influenced by them in some way. Looking at all these big shows, it makes sense that they have the stage presence of a band that’s super experienced. Check out this awesome video of Absence:

Last but not least, check out their site here. Most of their merch is currently sold out, but if you like the new album, try to support them in any way you can! Let’s keep these smaller bands alive and making amazing music as long as possible. Also check out similar artists to Skylene like Aerial and Still Stayer