UK Punk Rockers To Amp Up The Gloom On New E.P 'Reasons Not To Sleep'
“The songs we wrote for this record have a much darker, aggressive, and unhinged feel to them,” says Alex Marshall, lead vocalist and guitarist of returning UK punk rockers Miss Vincent,
discussing the quartet’s forthcoming new E.P, Reasons Not To Sleep; “I think the more you write, the more you learn how to communicate the things you want to say, and so this time around I found
myself approaching topics I wouldn’t have had the confidence to before.”
The follow up to their well received 2013 E.P Creepy, Reasons Not To Sleep sees Southampton’s Miss Vincent – completed by guitarist / vocalist Lawrie Pattison, drummer Jack Donnelly and bassist / vocalist Owain Mainwaring – switching it from creepy to gloomy. Playing their self-styled ‘moody punk rock’, paying homage to the likes of Alkaline Trio and AFI, RNTS see them take their craft to the next level. “With Creepy we just recorded the best 5 songs that we had at the time. We’re still proud of it, but this time I think we really found “our sound”,” opines Marshall; “It’s a lot darker, more layered and the songs are faster and more pissed off, as well as being much more direct lyrically. In the time we’ve spent as a band since releasing Creepy we’ve refined our songwriting chops a bit. The overall tone of the EP set itself pretty early on and we went for it full tilt.”
Even thematically, chief-lyricist Marshall has penned lyrical poison prose to match his band’s musical mood: “Theme wise, it isn’t very happy,” relays the frontman; “This EP is full of stuff that circulates my head daily. Everything from my own perceived lack of positivity, sanity, self-worth, ability, social and life skills… To examining and dissecting why I react the way I do when I’m confronted with a lot of situations, and questioning why and how I’m wired completely fucking wrong. There are some positive edges though - I try not to be overly negative, and I think there’s a lot of bizarre, twisted hope mangled in to all of that, which is important. I’ve written a lot of these songs about things that destroy me - mostly, myself - but the process of writing is so cathartic and therapeutic that I end up feeling a little better about things afterwards.”
