Time and Tide: K L P S talk second album

It’s been an eventful two years since the Helsingborg, Sweden based post-metal band, K L P S, released their debut record, Phantom Centre. In that time period, the four-piece not only underwent a rebrand of sorts, restylizing their name from Kollaps\e to avoid confusion with the similarly dubbed Danish band, Kollapse, but more importantly, they recorded their second full-length album, one that sees them truly finding their own sound.

Due out March 7 via the Italian record label, These Hands Melt, K L P S finds the group expanding outward from the framework they developed on their previous pair of releases, Phantom Centre and the 2021-released, The Pandemic Sessions EP. The influence of bands like ISIS, Neurosis and Breach are still palpable, but K L P S seem to be finding their own identity and creating their own unique take on the style. 

The base of it all is heavy post-metal, but flashes of hardcore and metalcore push themselves to the forefront throughout. Swaths of ambient synths and lead guitars accompany the crushing riffs and virulent vocals which barge ahead with a powerful sense of immediacy. K L P S demands a start-to-finish, whole album listen. It's the sound of a band coming into their own.

With the release of K L P S just on the horizon, guitarist/vocalist Daniel Wallenborg took the time to speak with us regarding the creation of the album, the development of the band, and more.

It seems like its was a quick turnaround from Phantom Centre to K L P S; when did you guys start writing this material?

It seems like it, but we actually had a couple of songs ready right after Phantom Centre. The Phantom Centre record took its time because I did all the mixing and mastering for that one and it was the first time I really attempted that kind of thing, and we had already started doing some demos. Peter [Walefors], the other guitarist, had a few ideas and almost simultaneously we started to make new songs, basically. It feels like a fast process, but some of the songs have been done for like two years already.

Did you have a bunch of songs going back a ways that you were fine-tuning?

Not so much, probably one or two things that we evolved. In the beginning we were just trying to find our sound and weren't really sure of what we were trying to achieve, basically. The Pandemic Sessions, the two-song EP, was ground zero, if you will, where we figured out what we wanted to do with the music and the vocals. In the beginning we felt maybe we would be an instrumental band, but we really wanted vocals. When we put the songs together, we felt like vocals were needed.

What were the initial conversations back then when you were forming the band as far as what you wanted to sound like?

Every time you start a band you need to have a starting point. For us, and for me—basically, I have done this type of music before, many, many years ago—the framework or the inspiration has always been ISIS Mosquito Control, Neurosis Through Silver in Blood and Times of Grace. I wanted it to be that heavy and gritty with the screaming vocals. I like the other stuff that those bands did, but that's my go to if I listen to those bands. I wanted something in that vein. Peter, the other guitarist, he comes from a different background, and we fused our ideas together, and this is basically what came out. I know there's a lot of Cult of Luna references, but yeah, I don't know about that, really.

Yeah, I've read that too. But the one thing I've seen you guys compared to that I think works well as a reference point is Breach.

Yeah, for the both of us Breach was a huge inspiration, hence the name Kollaps\e also. We named the band after their last record.

Did you grow up listening to more stuff on the hardcore end of the spectrum like that?

For sure. When I was like fourteen or fifteen I started with the skate punk thing, and then we had a little band in Sweden called Refused [laughs]. We kind of jumped on that bandwagon. I've seen them live like twenty times, back in the day. We started a band, but it was more like the New York hardcore, tough guy inspired stuff. Then it evolved to more Madball, Sick of it All. I went that route, and then in '97/'98/'99, the Hydra Head bands like Botch. Before that even, Deadguy was one of my favorite bands. Still is. I listen to that record a couple of times a year. When I heard it the first time, I had never heard anything like that, and probably not since. There's been many bands doing it, but nobody even comes close to their aggression, and Tim Singer's vocals for me just struck a chord.

I think that background of Deadguy and Hydra Head actually shows through on K L P S also. Is there a conscious effort to take what you guys are doing and twist it around in interesting ways like those bands were doing?

Yeah, I think we were looking for angles to see what we could do with it. Writing music today is pretty boring, actually, because you just sit at home with a riff, you do some stuff on MIDI drums, and most of the time you tend to keep it, you don't try to experiment that much with it. But when we take it to the rehearsal space and we introduce it to the other members, that's when we get the nuances, from everybody playing together. The drummer, for example, does something that we didn't program. So, it's basically, nowadays starting on the other end of things. You get used to hearing a song completed at home and then you take it to the space and you practice it and it becomes something else.

Is that the general writing practice for you?

I would say ninety percent writing stuff at home, putting two or three riffs together and seeing how it goes, record it and then share it to all the members. Then we meet up in the practice space and we show each other the riffs and try it. Sometimes it becomes a whole other thing. Not so much jamming nowadays, because you know, you work full time, and some of the members have kids, and life in general. It's hard to see each other three or four times a week like before.

There's been an evolution in the band's sound since The Pandemic Sessions into Phantom Centre, and now on K L P S, where you sound more like your own thing than a sum of your influences. That's obviously the natural progression of a band, but can you feel that evolution and trajectory within the band yourself?

We started like seven years ago and the first year we were not a serious thing; we were just playing for the sake of playing. I had a break for a couple of years from music and had to do other things. We started the band and we had those reference points and those songs came out really well and we felt that was the sound we wanted to go for. In the meantime we wrote a lot of things, I think we had upwards of twenty almost completed songs, not with vocals and keyboards, but the skeletons of them. Then for Phantom Centre, it was like a mish-mash of songs and other things. But from that point on, we focused a little bit more to do a more cohesive album, songs that would fit together for an album. I mean, Phantom Centre sounds like four or five different bands in seven songs. We wanted to be a little more fine-tuned. I guess we stopped listening to bands that sound like us, or we sound like them, and we just started to do the things we did before, but try to evolve them a little bit.

We do things backwards sometimes. This time, basically, all the songs were written and we started to record the drums, and when the drums are recorded we can't do much about it, but we had ideas when we recorded the guitars and bass and keyboards. We changed some parts after the fact. We had to consider the drums, but we changed a few parts that came in post-production. Also, the vocals were the last thing to be recorded and be written. We practiced those songs without vocals for a long time. So when we got the first mix we were like, "Holy hell, this is pretty heavy." We had one thing at our studio, a makeshift studio, and it sounded completely different. The end result was way better than we had thought it would be.

You mentioned the keyboards, and they seem to be more prevalent on this record than the previous. Was that something you guys were always looking to incorporate more?

Yeah, for sure. We actually put a lot of time on those parts for this one. Last time I did most of it at home. We really wanted them but we didn't take the time to map it out and see how it all would fit together, it was just like adding the extra texture. We really wanted it, but we didn't put the time into it. So this time, we took time and we listened to the whole thing and we tried things, took away or added, not just keeping it all in there because it would get blurred in the mix. We really wanted it to enhance some parts and some parts it just needs to be a texture or a layer to get the airy vibe of the whole thing.

What is the approach for you as far the lyrics and the vocals?

I write stuff all the time, I have pieces of lyrics on my phone, when I get an idea I put it down. It pretty much forms when the song is done and I know my guitar parts well and I know how to sing over the guitar. The lyrical content is from my views or my personal experience, but I try to make them open-ended so you can take from it what you will, and not have lyrics that preach something. I try to make it as interesting as possible, and also of course, fitting with the music. Lyrics are always hard to explain after you've written them. I know for me what it means, but it is sometimes hard to put words to it. 

I try to have it so that they all fit together for the album. It's not a concept album, but I think you need to listen to the whole thing to maybe get the whole idea of it. Some verses are a semi-political statement, but there's parts in the other lyrics that if you read them, maybe you can say, "Ah, I know what he is saying, but he doesn't say it out loud."

The overall sound of the record is much larger than Phantom Centre, how did you guys record this time around?

This time we recorded the drums with a real engineer. Last time we did it ourselves and we don't have that great of a knowledge to record a great sounding album. This time we rented a studio space in our hometown and we recorded the drums in a weekend, I think, and then we sat on it for a while, and then me and Peter actually recorded guitars, bass, the keyboards and the vocals in our practice space. We have a makeshift studio there, so it's like 50/50 professional and home recording. Then we sent it to a mixing guy and we mastered it at Dead Air in America. We felt the material needed that attention with guys that do this for a living, and not just us trying to be engineers. 

For the next time, we can do the whole studio experience. It's been a while since we've recorded mic'd guitars and stuff like that. So hopefully next time we can do the whole thing in the studio. It all comes down to time and money. We have to take off work for a week or maybe more. It's always a hassle when you have bills to pay.

On this record, do you have a favorite song or a song that sticks out to you for any reason?

Somebody asked me a while ago, not a music person, I think I said "Nattsvart." It's in Swedish, and except for it being the fastest one on the album I think it grew a lot when we put all the things together. I had written a lot of it and we didn't have Peter's parts or the bass parts or anything. I only had the guitars for so long, and drums, and the lyrical content came out really well, I think. Also "Aureola," the last one is a pretty cool song that will grow on people, I think. It has grown on me a lot since we recorded it. It came out much better than we had hoped for. I did my parts at the very end. The first thought was to do it as an all instrumental, but it opens with vocals. I couldn't shake that part from my head, so I really wanted to do something with it, and we discussed it back and forth and we came to the conclusion that we would do a semi-instrumental track. It starts with vocals and then it goes instrumental to the end, and fittingly it's the last track on the album. I think it ends the album really well.

Now that this is ready to come out to the world, what comes next?

Looking forward to the record, of course, and then we are waiting for our drummer to get home from Asia, and then we have to rehearse and we are doing a kind of release show in April here in our hometown. We have few shows lined up, and then I think we need to get back to writing again. We have a few ideas on the table, but nothing is recorded or anything like that. Then I guess it will be a few years before maybe we will enter the studio. I don't think we will rush anything this time. Hopefully something cool will show up. There's been a lot of talk about all these different things, but nothing is really one hundred percent set in stone, but hopefully something cool will come out of it.

One last question. Since the majority of Lambgoat readers are in the US, what are some bands in Sweden we should check out?

You should check out a band from Stockholm called Maridia. It's post-hardcore with a female singer, if that matters. They're really good and it's very aggressive and it's very cool. Then you have a Swedish band called ORO. It means “worrying” in English. They are kind of like us in a sense, that type of music. There is also a band called Hämnd, it's “revenge” in English. Also a kind of post-metal band. A lot of good bands.

Purchase K L P S here.