Skyharbor's sophomore album, Guiding Light, comes out November 10th via Basick Records. For the occasion, we asked guitarist Keshav Dhar to tell us about each track. His commentary on the full album can be seen below.
1. Allure
This is my personal fave from the record - it’s uptempo and pacey but not angry, has more of a sexy and dancey vibe to it. Probably the most experimental and contemporary tune we’ve written to date.
2. Evolution
It’s amazing how sometimes you hear something and you know straightaway it’s a winner. Devesh had been writing this tune all by himself for months and was being all secretive about it - we didn’t even know if it would ever come to light, then he showed it to us all of a sudden one day and we instantly knew it was the lead single.
3. Idle Hands
This song is a real potpourri of vibes, it goes from happy and poppy to proggy and floaty. The lyrics for this song were what set the stage for building the overall concept of the album, and some of the lines actually make appearances in other tracks as well - see if you can spot the easter eggs!
4. Miracle
This was the very first song to be demoed for the record, incidentally it was also the last one to be finished. We sweated for ages over how to arrange it, and we finally cracked it suddenly when we were backstage at the Barfly in London, minutes before we went on stage!
5. Halogen
We have this habit of writing multiple different parts in the same song which vie for the position of chorus. We also like to really milk Dan’s uncanny ability to write the most ridiculously catchy hooks! This song probably exemplifies that the best. I’d call it pop-prog, it’s got hooks all the way through but none of them repeat.
6. New Devil
This was the black sheep of the album really. None of us were convinced about it till Dan wrote vocals for it, then it suddenly came to life! It’s alternatively weird, brooding, raging and sugary sweet. Typically us. It’ll be a belter to play live, really looking forward to throwing this in the live set in the future!
7. Patience
This tune more or less wrote itself once Dev came up with the intro. It’s one of those things that just flows and before you know it you’ve got a song written. It’s also a classic case of the song being much greater than the sum of its parts - it’s possibly the simplest song we’ve ever written, but it actually shook us when we heard it back in its finished state. Coupled with the video that Jess Cope directed for it, it’s possibly the best thing we’ve ever done till date.
8. Guiding Lights
This has to be the strangest one of all. It started out as literally a one-minute filler track to connect Patience with another song that eventually didn’t even make the cut for the album! Dan was insistent that we develop it into a full song, and like Patience, once we got started we literally bashed the whole thing out in a couple of hours. It was effortless. We felt the vibe of the song really encapsulates what Skyharbor is all about, big, emotional, dynamic and progressive mood shifts, and we felt it was fitting to name the album after this song.
9. Kaikoma
This was originally called Frozen. It had this icy cold sound to it, although I suspect that’s more to do with the fact we wrote it in the thick of winter haha. We don’t usually write about fantasy stuff but this was a lot of fun!
10. The Constant
I have a very deep personal connection to this song, I'd been writing it since the Blinding (debut album) sessions, chipping away at it bit by bit, and when it all came together it was a real cathartic experience. The guitar solo that our good friend Plini from Australia contributed, was another heart-stoppingly emotional moment. Very proud of this one and it felt like the perfect closer to the album, with the lyrics “this is my last devotion to you”. Don’t worry though, this isn’t our last song by a long shot haha!