Interview with Low Flying Hawks

The doom metal of Low Flying Hawk’s latest album Genkaku is dreamy and sublime; definitely worth checking out if you’re into the style. The songs are moody and atmospheric, with the band’s slow, mournful performance resulting in very emotive tracks of moody, affecting metal.

Have a listen to the album while you also have a read of the below.

What are your influences?

Wow!! So many!! Anywhere from Scott Walker to Darkspace and in between!! Jazz, krautrock, classic rock, psych, techno, acid house, modern contemporary, folk, punk, pop, music is basically our main passion in life so we have tons of influences.

Name five things you’ve listened to recently that you’d recommend

The new Slowdive is great, been listening to a lot of Miles Davis electric period, Blood Incantation, Giles Corey/Have a Nice Life, Robert Wyatt/Soft Machine, etc., etc.

Tell us about Genkaku – what are some of the lyrical themes on the album about?

The album is about confusion, doubt, resilience and hope. This is the second part of a trilogy, which is loosely based on the myth of Sisyphus, so it’s a circle which will be connected and rounded on the third part, so Genkaku basically is the middle of the road, where you’re not sure whats going on and everything is Helter Skelter!

What’s the process you use for writing songs?

We work on our own and then get together, talk and figure out what we want to say and everything else just happens magically.

What’s your favourite song on the album and why?

Whoa, really, all of the songs are very special, each in its own way, they’re all very personal songs, we don’t take anything lightly so we put everything into them and it would be really hard to single out one of them.

How did you choose the order of the songs?

Our objective was always as an album not as a collection of songs so the order was based on the concept of the album as well as the song flow which we felt made the most sense and connected in the best possible way.

How would you compare Genkaku with your earlier work?

They’re very different albums, Kofuku is about letting go, moving on and is a more monolithic and dreamy record, so the approach was completely different, this time around we were aiming at a more psychedelic and straightforward record this will chance dramatically with the third part of the trilogy and with the EP, which is a bridge between the two and is in its mixing phase.

What lessons have you learned from Genkaku that you will take forward for your next recording?

None hahaha, we had a very clear and constructed path, we took a long long time in every phase so we feel we’ve made the records we aimed for since day 1, we put tons of effort into every detail everything we do has an intention and a meaning we take this very seriously and wouldn’t put out something we’re not 100% behind.

What would you like to achieve with the album?

We’re happy with whatever happens, once we put it out it’s out of our reach we really don’t have expectations or ideas of what could happen or what it could achieve, we just create and let go.