Australia's biggest hardcore-metal band Parkway Drive has announced plans to return to the studio to record their third studio album, which is expected to be released later this summer via Epitaph Records. The long-awaited follow-up to 2007's hard-hitting breakout album Horizons was written in the band's hometown of Byron Bay over the past six months and will be recorded in Los Angeles with celebrated producer Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Bad Religion) over the coming weeks.
Determined to surpass previous efforts, Parkway Drive have gone all out in creating a complete listening experience. While maintaining the band's trademark sound at its core, their forthcoming album will weave music, lyrics and artwork together into a dense concept that flows from beginning to end.
"Writing with a concept in mind has given us more direction," explains Parkway Drive frontman Winston McCall. "Every song on this album was created with a definite purpose, as opposed to just writing a riff and building on that."
While McCall concedes the album's basic narrative - the tale of a man lacking direction in life who goes looking for answers at the bottom of the sea - is "kind of bizarre," he says the concept was flexible enough to open itself up to many far-reaching ideas.
"The ocean is where I find the most clarity," says the former bodyboard champion. "To go to the beach and sink into the water, the sound cuts out and you can just forget about everything. So I guess the concept is about cutting out everything and focusing on what's inside yourself."
