Perth’s Daybreak have released a fresh new single and music video. “Acid Green” is the first release from the band since their Death Dreams EP, which featured guest vocals from Mark Poida (Aversions Crown) and Jamie Hails (Polaris). With the new track, Daybreak had engineer and producer Cody Brooks record it, with Lance Prenc lending his skills with the mixing and mastering. The result is an impressive one.
“Acid Green” goes as hard as you’d expect. Within thirty seconds we’re dealt a hearty helping of heaviness, preceded by static beats. Plunging and driven, we’re hitting rock bottom with Daybreak and navigating the worst of the dense muck that surrounds them in this state. Self-blaming and reveling in self-punishment, we’re flooded by sonic intensity, as if we’re punching our own faces in the darkness. In the fit of this self-struggle, there’s a gasp of effort to survive and break free, expressed by spat vocals:
“I bent, I broke. Paranoia’s got me by the throat.”
Openness at the clean chorus after all of this earlier suffocation is what won me over with “Acid Green”. I’m a sucker for a song that explores an emotion, and this track goes all-in. With guitar and bass intricacy, for a moment it feels like something else is possible than the oppressive darkness… Until doubt and fierceness again resume their intimidating position and we’re left questioning our sanity. Distant vocals brilliantly capture the safety and escape to be found in (drug-induced?) disconnection, despite being out of touch with reality in doing so.
“Acid Green” peaks emotionally when a sense of fight again breaks through the surface via calls of guitar and voice (“Bury the person I used to be”), and this openness seems to reflect the defeat of the dark trappings that weigh them down. It’s impressive and moving for what could have been ‘just another heavy track’, and I’m digging the sense of story about it all.
Most promisingly, the band considers the song a maturation that heralds a new chapter for Daybreak, boding well for some more impressive music on the horizon. “Acid Green” is said to be the product of a turning point in vocalist Shaun Cox’s life. He says “I describe the emotions that were running through my mind at a time where I could visualise how my future would pan out if I didn’t change the fundamental values in my life. This experience caused me to grow and mature as a person, faster than anything had before which also accompanies the maturing in the sound of our music.”
Perth friends can celebrate the new chapter of the band by going to the “Acid Green” launch party on 14th July at Amplifier Bar. They’ll be having Deadlights, Illyria, and Owed to Damnation along with them!
Check out “Acid Green” below via YouTube. Daybreak had the brilliant Crystal Arrow Films bring the song to life visually, relevantly showing the visuals of a dark path and sense of being lost, whether in dense forest or unfeeling in a trance. You can also find the track on our Spotify playlist HERE.
