Re-'Incarnation': Jake Taylor Reveals His Favourite Track From Each In Hearts Wake Album

Today, In Hearts Wake dropped their highly anticipated sixth album, Incarnation.

A sequel to their 2012 debut LP, Divination, the new record even brings back some special guests you heard from their first album.

There’s Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall – again on track three – featuring on the devastating The Flood (ǝɔᴉʇsnɾ), For The Fallen Dreams’ Chad Ruhlig making his return alongside King 810’s David Gunn, and Heartsick’s Alfonso Civile on Michigama (uɐᴉɔᴉƃɐɯ ǝɥʇ), and The Color Morale’s Garrett Rapp reprising his unforgettable vocals on Shellshock (ssǝʇsǝᴉɹd ɥƃᴉɥ ǝɥʇ).

But In Hearts Wake aren’t only interested in giving a shoutout to their old mates or rehashing what we’ve heard before. There’s another special guest – repping fresh metallers Paledusk’s Katio Nagai Shishigami シシ神 (ssǝɹdɯǝ ǝɥʇ) – and Incarnation marking their heaviest album and sole release without former bassist and singer Kyle Erich.

In a statement, vocalist Jake Taylor said of the new LP, “Incarnation is the shadow counterpart and sequel to the band's debut album Divination, with each song inspired by the meaning and ideals of a particular Major Arcana Tarot card. There are 22 Major Arcana Tarot cards in every deck and 11 tracks on each record, bringing the vision to completion 12 years later.

“But much like a coin with two sides, cards flipped upside down deliver the reversed meaning,” Taylor added. “Polarised in every way, Incarnation explores the dark underbelly to mirror and stand diametrically opposite to Divination.”

To celebrate the band’s darkly brilliant new album, Jake Taylor caught up with The Music to share his favourite tracks from each In Hearts Wake record to date.

Divination (2012): Traveller

For Divination, Traveller (The Fool) is my favourite. And it's the favourite because it was the first offering, the first single, and because of the whole experience with Eka [Darville] making the film clip. Not knowing how this record would do, there was no expectation around it. There was just a desire to put our best foot forward. There was a sense of joy with all of it. And Traveller just really scratched that itch visually and musically at the time.

It’s so nostalgic, that melodic start, and it just feels very youthful. It captures what we were like at 21. And we had big eyes, this whole sort of “the world is our oyster” thing. It was just a special time. And so is now, but very much so then.

Earthwalker (2014): Earthwalker

My favourite song to play on Earthwalker has to be Earthwalker. Not only is it the title track, it’s also a very positive song. It's hard to write a positive song without it being too forced or too cheesy. And it was very much a celebration of the earth and us being the humans on this journey of life essentially. It’s got so much vitality.

If we’re talking about playing it live, it wouldn't be my favourite song. But the energy of it live really translates to what the song's about. There's so many beautiful moments on the record, I mean, Wildflower touches on a connective emotional level, and so does Divine in some way. But the energy of Earthwalker…lock it in, Eddie, Earthwalker. 

Skydancer (2015): Breakaway

For Skydancer, I’m gonna go with Breakaway. It felt like the first time we were trying stuff that felt more anthemic, and adding in what we used to call scroats - screaming throat singing, if you will. At the time, we were exploring a balance of my voice with Kyle's [Erich] voice when screaming in pitch to deliver a chorus. And it felt like there was this new anthemic thing that we were discovering. Fittingly, we filmed Breakaway down the edge of a massive waterfall. This is when the band had a couple of really strong foundational records, and this was that next level. So it was a very exciting time.

Ark (2017): Totality

I am going to go with a really unconventional one here for Ark and say that I really like Totality. It's one that we've never played live, but it's a song that I really love.

Personally, I like the lyrics, and I like the melody and the feeling of the performance. When I listen to it, I can hear where I was at, speaking to the totality and wholeness of everything. And it's a celebration of the natural world. It sounds cheesy, but it’s a celebration of the trees and the way that it photosynthesizes and gives back to the source. Just being in awe of the fucking amazing way the world works. Whoever says magic doesn’t exist - just look at how the trees take in and photosynthesize and how we breathe. It’s mind-blowing how that works. 

Kaligula (2020): Worldwide Suicide

My Kaligula favourite is Worldwide Suicide. I think it's the first time we scratched the itch of the frustration and rage and inaction that we were seeing in the world. And it was a new lowest of lows, like the heaviest of heavies that we had discovered. Worldwide Suicide dropped at a time; it was about two days before Australia shut down for the pandemic. So it was like, “Whoa, this is on the pulse”. And at the time, it felt like we didn't know how long it would be before we'd be coming out of that spell. So that is the mascot of that record, for sure.

Green Is The New Black Official Soundtrack (2022): Razor’s Edge

For Green Is The New Black, I’m going with Razor’s Edge. It’s the song we used as the instrumental as the theme song for the movie. It felt very cinematic.

There was this massive tree; it must've been a 60 or 70-year-old tree that was right outside my house on council land. It was right above the playground, and it was around two metres in diameter. It was an old camphor laurel, so it wasn't a native.

Long story short, the council came, and they had to cut it down. The next day I went on a tour and I came back and the tree was cut to ground level, and all you could see this massive stump. It was once the biggest tree, all the limbs used to climb in and around, but it had to go because there were bats that were hanging out in the tree, and they were spreading the seeds of this invasive weed of a tree.

It didn't look like a weed. It was magical. But I sort of used that as a timestamp of someone going back who's climbing in its branches and using its fruits and then using it for firewood, and then all of a sudden, we're left with nothing. We took too much. And so it’s walking this razor's edge of what it is to give and take and steps into when the take is almost too much that it becomes our own downfall.

Incarnation (2024): Transmission

Finally, for Incarnation, I’ll go with Transmission (uns ǝɥʇ) because it's the odd one out that is almost like the lighthouse at the end of a really dark shadow that is this record.

It sort of sits out, not on its own because it has a place in ending the record, but because of how much the song means to me, both what it's about and how it felt to perform it and how I feel when I listen to it. It's almost this emotionally cinematic journey that is unpredictable in the way it just keeps going. It goes for six minutes, so it's unconventional. I liked that freedom. And I like picking the underdog sometimes.

Incarnation is out now via UNFD. You can catch In Hearts Wake on tour this September.

IN HEARTS WAKE

INCARNATION AUSTRALIA TOUR 2024

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS PALEFACE SWISS (SWITZERLAND), KING 810 (USA) & GRAVEMIND

THURSDAY 5 SEPTEMBER 2024 - KING STREET BANDROOM, NEWCASTLE 18+
FRIDAY 6 SEPTEMBER 2024 - LIBERTY HALL, SYDNEY 18+
SATURDAY 7 SEPTEMBER 2024 - THE TIVOLI, BRISBANE 18+
THURSDAY 12 SEPTEMBER 2024 - THE FORUM, MELBOURNE 18+
FRIDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2024 - THE GOV, ADELAIDE 18+
SATURDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2024 - MAGNET HOUSE, PERTH 18+

Tickets: inheartswake.com