Put It All On Black

With a European fanbase swelling brilliantly large, Karnivool spent a good chunk of last year traversing across the culture continent. They brought their progressive metal strains to locations old and new, killed it a few choice festivals such as Download and Hurricane, and even managed to squeeze in some line-dancing and gambling aboard an icebreaker while crossing the Baltic Sea.

“We went on it twice this time, and actually, we were playing blackjack – they've got casino tables there – and as soon as you get into Swedish waters all the rules change,” recalls guitarist Drew Goddard. “Suddenly, there's no such thing as a stand-off on 17, 18, 19, so I just thought I got ripped off when I got into Sweden. It was all fun and games [though], it was just an amazing trip; we got to a few places that we hadn't been to, we did Belgium and Copenhagen, and a lot of places that we had been to [as well] – we're just seeing growth everywhere. It was all really well received and my beard was touched more often than I've had it touched in my life, which was kinda weird, but it kept me warm at night.”

All this has come off the back of Asymmetry, the band's third long-player and their first to top the ARIA charts. It's an immersive listen, a record that's incredibly accomplished and one that demands repeated spins and full commitment from the listener. But Goddard admits the band too are still wrapping their heads around the latest release, even after the now somewhat expected four-year wait period between this latest effort and previous opus, 2009's Sound Awake.

“There's a lot of stuff on Asymmetry that's jarring and we went for a lot of discordant stuff – that was new to us – but after playing around with it for a while it makes sense,” he says. “Just chords on the bottom instead of using your power chords, your fifths and your fourths, which bring some really jagged intervals. The default setting [for Karnivool] is usually something that's a bit off, but to me there's a beauty in that that takes longer for people to come around to. If you keep listening for that sort of stuff though it will finally find its place, and it is kind of agreeable – I don't think it needs to be nice and harmonic and diatonic and pleasurable to be beautiful.”

The Perth five-piece will showcase this fractured elegance on their upcoming Polymorphism tour, alongside fellow Oz heavy merchants Dead Letter Circus and sleepmakeswaves. Both bands, like Karnivool, offer up widely varied light and shade within their epic tunes, making the tour's title banner a suitable one. As far as where they sit on the bill though – on which side of the polymorphism ideals that Karnivool lean – Goddard isn't too sure. All he knows is that on their given day – or night – the quintet can embody both elements with ease.

“We're definitely drawn to the darker side of things, [but] with the right amount of light in there,” he expands; “it's all about the balance and I think Asymmetry, that was just one of many references to that. But I like to structure a set so it takes you on an emotional rollercoaster, so you've got the really ominous stuff and then you come out of it and you've got the retrospective, uplifting moments at the right places, and the atmospheric stuff and the heavy stuff, the dark and the light.

“I think all three bands are similar in that way,” he adds. “The dark and the light... I dunno, that's all subjective; when people listen to music, what is dark and what is light anyway? But all three bands encourage the listener to feel something that's a bit deeper, and mix up emotions to get something positive out of it.”

Karnivool are in the best form of their career, and the Polymorphism tour will no doubt suitably open the account on another huge 12 months for the group, what with an extensive Aussie run mid-year, many more overseas dates, and songwriting sessions spliced in between it all while frontman Ian Kenny isn't busy with his other day job, Birds Of Tokyo. “We're going to keep that ball rolling as much as possible,” says Goddard, a statement which begs the question: will we have new Karnivool material before 2017? “I am not going to promise anything,” he laughs, refusing to be suckered in by the query, “I have done that before and I've been a horrible liar.”