Artist: Ursus
New Single: Hallowed Shakes
Release Date: 11th December 2017

 

Hailing from the south-west of England, a very exciting new nu-metalcore band Ursus finally released their single ‘Hallowed Shakes’ on 11th December which is their first track with the current lineup. Their debut single ‘Ascension’ was released in April this year.

‘Hallowed Shakes’ is a powerful track melodically and lyrically. Even the sound on it’s own, it is very emotional and cinematic but with lyrics sung by an authentic vocalist, this track totally blows your mind. Recently I asked the band a few questions about their music.

 

Hello, Ursus! 
Who are we having here?

I’m James, I play guitar in Ursus

I’m Ryan, I play Bass in Ursus

Thanks for talking to us today, James and Ryan! Could you tell us how you all met up and became a band?

James: The band initially formed in our drummer’s garage. We had been playing together for fun for a few years and trying to start the band, but it took us a little while to find other members, other than me, the drummer and our original second guitarist. After a couple years of jamming together and writing some tunes, we eventually found Ryan online.

Ryan: I saw an ad for an instrumental progressive metal band online who required a bass player. I sent them a Tool cover and they asked me to come down to Pewsey to play some of the demo’s. We all got along great, and then we went from there looking for a vocalist.

Thanks for sharing your band history. How do you normally go about writing your songs?

James: Normally I’ll write all the parts to start with and sometimes it will be a full demo or other times it will be more of a collection of riffs. I tend to come up with about 10 different variations of most of the parts so then that’s when I bring it to everyone else and we all work out exactly how the song should go.

Ryan: Sometimes James can write a massive part of a song, but most of the time we arrange and structure them together in a practice space. We’ll go over the structure and all the variations of the song as a group and then everyone goes back over their individual instruments to make sure everything is as good as it can be.

Great! Who are your influences? Does everyone listen to similar music or musicians?

Ryan: For me it’s usually Volumes and Emmure when it comes to influences on this band. But it can vary anywhere from Behemoth to Nirvana. I listen to a lot of stuff those are just the main influences when I think of Ursus.

James: I’m a massive Structures and Periphery fan. We all have quite different areas of metal that we prefer though. Joe our vocalist listens to way heavier stuff and I think that blend of genres helps make the music stand out more.

Okay. You just released the single ‘Hallowed Shakes’. How would you describe this song?

James: Hallowed Shakes is more on the melodic side of Ursus. We wanted to show a bit of what Ursus sounds like at the lighter end of our spectrum and this is a much more emotionally driven song than we have ever written. We wanted our first release with our new line-up to be representative of us a whole. By picking the song with a few softer parts, people will get to see what we are all capable of before we start working on some heavier music to release next year.

Ryan: That’s not to say it’s not still got its fair share of heavy riffs and breakdowns though.

Awesome! I heard that Ermin Handanovic mastered the track. What made you decide him to work with you?

James: We had our friend Steven Jones mix the track for us and we loved the sound of his bands new single, Golden Age by From Sorrow to Serenity which Ermin had mastered for him. We were already massive fans of Ermin from the last few Periphery albums and we knew that Steven had worked with him on that single and it sounded amazing so it seemed like a good decision to make the song as good as it could be.

Ryan: Steven told us he worked really well with Ermin so we just wanted that final touch up on the end to elevate the awesome mix that Steven had already done.

I believe “Hallowed Shakes” is released digitally. Where can we find the song?

Ryan: ‘Hallowed Shakes’ is available now on Itunes, Apple Music, Spotify and all the other major digital stores. But the best place to go is weareursus.com. Our website has links to everything all in one place as well as our merch store and all that kind of stuff.

Sure. Are we expecting an EP or album following this single?

Ryan: For the time being we’re only interested in doing singles. Albums and EPs don’t seem to be working at the moment unless you’re already in an established band. People aren’t listening to extended plays from new bands and all the bands we know that are doing singles are doing much better.

James: Plus, it gives us a bit more freedom to explore some different sounds song to song instead of having to make everything sound similar for one EP.

I get you. Do you have a special show planned for the release?

James: We’re not doing a release show for this one since it was so close to Christmas. We’re going to let everyone digest the new song over the holidays and then release a little bit of extra content to do with the single in the new year before we go back out, but we can’t say much about that at the moment.

Ryan: Again on weareursus.com there’s all the links to our social media and Facebook has all the details about the shows we’ll be playing next year since most of them haven’t been announced yet.

What should we gig goers expect from your live shows?

James: The Ursus live show is dark, energetic and aggressive. We strive to make the show as much of a visual experience as an audible one. When you come to our show you’re seeing us performing to the best of our ability and we’ve tried to make it an all-round experience for the people watching.

Ryan: We’re not just going to stand still and play the songs we’re going to put everything we have into them, every night.

I’m thrilled to come to your show soon! Well, you must be very excited about the release!

James: We are so glad everyone finally gets to see the new Ursus. This single is a fresh start for us and it’s been sat on my laptop for so long now it’s nice to get it out finally. The first instrumental demo was written more than a year ago so it feels good for people to finally hear it.

Ryan: It’s almost like a new band now with the amount our music and live shows have improved since Joe joined. That’s why we wanted to do the video, so everyone could see every side of the band with this new release.

What is coming from Ursus next?

James: Expect a little something in the new year and then we’ve got a new single coming hopefully between March and April which we’re extremely excited about.

Ryan: We’ll also be playing a lot more shows in 2018 and it looks like a few small tours as well.

Yes, it sounds really exciting! Is there anything else you would like to say?

Ryan: Go over to our Instagram and Facebook to stay connected and see what we’re doing next!

James: The new single is available on youtube and all digital music stores, so go and check it out at weareursus.com and let us know what you think!

Thank you for your time! Good luck!

( Teri Morris )

 

 

You can find the lyrics for Hallowed Shakes on BandCamp

 

 

To find out more about Ursus, visit their sites using the links below;
Official Website: https://www.weareursus.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pg/ursusofficial/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ursusbanduk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ursusbanduk
Merch: http://ursusband.bigcartel.com/
BandCamp: https://ursusband.bandcamp.com/
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/ursus-uk
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/3ANI3P7f5MbD4XEMQLMids
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVhWBxEOofWR-Pezy9Ns7Iw/videos