As Living Arrows To Release New Album “Hope & Ruin”; Band Shares New Single And Video “Our Meridian”

As Living Arrows is a band from the UK and “Hope & Ruin” is their second album as a group, yet their first release after they changed their name from Dead Bird in early 2024. 

The music can be flagged under post-emo, as the group is blending atmospheric post-rock elements into their 2000’s post-hardcore and screamo tunes. It is heavy, it can crawl under your skin and maybe takes you to another place before it puts you back on your feet. Its emotional swagger surely creates an intense listening experience.

“Hope & Ruin” is an all encompassing narrative that has everything you could want from a band with wrongs to rights, demons to expel and guitars in their hands. It serves a challenge, letting itself open for interpretations and asking you to reflect on what truly matters.

Hope and Ruin was written during a 10 day stay at Shaken Oak Studios in Oxfordshire in March 2023. After writing was complete, ALA used the next few months of touring to hone the material and tweak the songs into their final forms.

The album was recorded at Middle Farm Studios with Peter Miles in October 2023 in two 3-day sessions. The band’s goal was to capture the sound of their performing live as organically as possible.

Immediately bursting into life with signature piercing screams and dense layers of guitars, Our Meridian calls upon the fragile, intricate post-hardcore of La Dispute and blends it with the apocalyptic catharsis of Russian Circles and Deafheaven. At once intimate yet grandiose, anthemic yet raw, the song’s dynamic shifts and emotive lyrics create an immersive experience, capturing the essence of struggle, resilience, and finding one’s true north. Recorded to tape by Peter Miles (Architects, Tesseract) at Middle Farm Studios, the song aims to capture the organic sound of the band performing live at full throttle.

Premiering alongside a music video made by John Bradburn (Frail Body, Emma Ruth Rundle, Umbrae Vitae), Our Meridian reflects a point in life where past experiences and future aspirations intersect. The song explores how the significance of life’s moments shifts over time – how seemingly major events of the past fade into insignificance, while those once overlooked emerge as our most precious memories.