Listening to Harmony of Discordance, you would never guess that Sociasylum started out as a power violence-style band. But if you compare it to the Tallinn, Estonia-based outfit's self-titled debut album from a decade ago, it's almost like two different bands.
"Due to changes within, the band became a quartet and changed their musical direction more towards hardcore and grindcore with taking many influences from various extreme music sub-genres," says Sociasylum guitarist Eduard Aranson. Released earlier this month, Harmony of Discordance finds the quartet bringing forth a sound that brings to mind everything from Tragedy to Napalm Death to Converge.
"It has always been a little difficult for myself to describe our sound," admits Eduard. "From the moment I joined, we agreed to not limit ourselves creatively, thus all influences were welcomed from the start. If i would try to describe the way we sound based on Harmony of Discordance and the songs I have written for the forthcoming LP, I would say that we are a blend of blackened hardcore mixed with crust punk, grindcore, and everything in between.
"I get inspired by everything I listen to and for Sociasylum it’s bands like Implore, Wormrot, Napalm Death, Full of Hell, Plebeian Grandstand, Portrayal of Guilt, Year of the Knife, Wake, and Converge."
According to Eduard, current world events informed the lyrical side of their latest material. "The original conceptual idea was to create a series of 4 EPs that would conceptually be connected and released over the course of multiple years, but as soon as Russia invaded Ukraine, it felt too egoistic to write songs about personal struggles and we rewrote all the lyrics to reflect what we felt while watching this unnecessary war roll out so close to us and our friends.
"The lyrics of the EP deal with people being under the influence of propaganda and following blindly idolised leaders, holding materialistic values higher than the value of peace and struggle to survive, while the surrounding society chooses to ignore the pain."
While I had their attention, I asked Sociasylum for some thoughts on the underground music scene in their region of Estonia, and drummer Henri Mäll is up first: "Our local scene has been thriving over the last couple of years, lots of new blood in the scene with young bands and crowds rejuvenated. Newcomers like C.C., Keskkool, Buzhold."
Bassist Taavi Veidner adds: "I would highlight the older bands like the local noise rock legends Zahir, mathdoom geniuses behind Borm Bubu and the highly talented hiphop producer and artist DEW8. After COVID we had quite a few important venues shut down, one of the more important ones for our local city scene was Sveta Bar, which left a huge hole of emptiness ever since. Luckily our Tallinn-based DIY punk venue Ülase12 is still going strong."
Eduard also chimes in: "For myself, some of my favorite local bands are sludge/grindcore band Kuritarvitaja, local hardcore heroes Pinkwave and as pure old school grindcore is rather non-existent in our local scene will add to this list a band influenced heavily by Terrorizer called Marutaud."
Harmony of Discordance is out now across all digital music outlets. Physical release to follow soon.
Hit the Sociasylum Linktree to find all of their social media pages.
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