Courtesy Bobby Cochran
Audio By Carbonatix
Black Sabbath may have given fairies some heavy-metal street cred when it released “Fairies Wear Boots” in 1970, but Denver’s Dreadnought lends the whimsical creatures more credence in its music.
“It’s hard to define us. We get a lot of ethereal metal – or somebody called us ‘fairy metal’ the other day. I was like, ‘Okay, sure.’ But I like that it has a fantastical element and it’s not too over-the-top or too cheesy. That makes it cool for storytelling. It’s like world-building with sound,” says vocalist and guitarist Kelly Schilling of the band, which applies instruments not traditionally used in metal, such as woodwinds. “I think ethereal, progressive metal with jazz and classical influences, prog rock. I don’t have an eloquent way of describing it. It’s celestial and ethereal, but also fantastical and moving.”
Schilling, drummer Jordan Clancy, bassist Kevin Handlon and keyboardist/vocalist Lauren Vieira just released their fifth studio album, The Endless. At just over 41 minutes, the record’s six songs transport listeners to a realm filled with dark crystals, labyrinths and nefarious pixies. Starting with the stunning album art by Reza Afshar, which depicts a woman standing atop a ridge before the gaping maw of a golden portal, The Endless eases listeners into an auditory journey with “Worlds Break.” The soothing vocals and keys are deceptive, luring in the curious and unsuspecting before all hell breaks loose midway through the eight-minute song. “Midnight Moon” follows with its face-melting fury, which further pulls back the veil of Dreadnought’s fantasy realm and reveals that there’s more to this never-ending story than initially meets the eye.
“The Endless” – the shortest song on the record at just over four minutes – is a slight reprieve from the band’s disorienting juxtaposition of sweet and sour sounds. But don’t be fooled: “Liminal Veil” is just around the corner. The album’s longest track at nine-plus minutes, the song acts as a climax with its breadth and inclusion of everything that Dreadnought does so well – siren-like arias, beautiful song structure and just the right dose of distortion. “Gears of Violent Endurance” is the heaviest song on The Endless, a final conflict before “The Paradigm Mirror” releases brave pilgrims back into the real world.
Once you take a deep breath after finishing the album, you’re left with one question: What was that?
The band officially describes The Endless as an album that “dives into a relatable character arc about the human divide of light and suffering. It is an overture to the complexities of the proliferation of life, exploring the trail of choices that shape our world and our lives. It invites the question: Can we overcome our nature and make higher-minded choices to better humanity and our planet? Or are we lost in a never-ending cycle of shadow?”
Schilling explains that a Dreadnought album should make listeners want more and leave them with lingering questions. “We strive…to make the full album an experience as opposed to song-by-song structures,” she says.
While writing the new record, she adds, Dreadnought’s songwriting process centered around the vocals more than it has in the past, specifically highlighting the twin attack of Schilling and Vieira – though at recent live shows, Emily Shreve has stepped in for Vieira. Guitarist Ryan Simms has also joined the band.
“I can’t say there was any genre-specific thing we were trying to do, but we were definitely trying to…put the vocals more at the forefront on this record,” Schilling says. “I think we were always kind of inching toward that, and then we finally made the shift with this record. We always kind of start the skeleton of a song with guitar and a vocal idea, and then as people add their ideas to it, it changes over time. With [The Endless], we did focus more on what, exactly, the vocals are going to do, and how [we could] form all of the transitions around that.”
The result is a band that sounds like Jethro Tull meets Mayhem: flower-filled doom metal for people who frequent renaissance festivals, or mosh pit music for boot-wearing fairies.
Oranssi Pazuzu and Hiatus Kaiyote are two bands that Schilling mentions when talking about her more recent influences, but Dreadnought as a collective is more attuned to ardor than anything.
“I suppose it just all comes naturally to us. We all have a bunch of different influences, and usually when we’re writing, we’ll feel the energy shift,” she says. “We either feel a rising in energy or falling in energy, feel it going heavier or not. It’s so hard to describe, because you just feel it and hear it in your head.”
The Endless is available on major streaming platforms. To learn more about Dreadnought, visit dreadnoughtdenver.com.
