“We talk a lot about diverse topics, and people have been asking us if there’s more clean singing, because our lead single has some clean singing. There are a few songs with clean singing. We have some songs that sound like ballads, and songs that are mosh parts,” says Emma Boster, lead vocalist for Dying Wish, while discussing the band’s upcoming debut album, Fragments of a Bitter Memory, which drops October 1st on SharpTone Records.
Although the Portland metalcore band has become best known for impassioned and empowering musical diatribes of the sociopolitical variety (“We want to continue to speak up about important topics and challenge people. We’re pretty loud about our beliefs about abolition, the government, and stuff like that,” Boster tells me during our recent phone chat.), Dying Wish’s latest single, “Until Mourning Comes,” released earlier this week, is about a family friend who died in a plane crash while the album was being written, giving it an extra personal touch. The incident came just days after Riley Gale of Power Trip had died, leading the song to become an anthem of grief for those gone too soon.
Dying Wish are only about half a decade into their career, with their debut album yet to hit shelves, yet they have already made a noteworthy splash amongst their community. “Recognition from the bigger metal outlets, like Revolver, has been really amazing,” says Boster, before adding, “And people have been making reaction videos on YouTube, which is cool. Everyone’s recognition is appreciated.” And when I ask her about her personal highlights of the band, she says that it’s really been the opportunities they’ve had with their musical peers: “Knocked Loose had me featured on a song on their last album, which was really amazing, and then our tour with Counterparts was really great. Those are probably my two biggest highlights.”
Emma Boster was recently featured in a piece for Revolver about five of her favorite albums and during our chat she mentioned even more music that served as influences behind the band’s debut album: “Our guitarist is really inspired by At The Gates, Killswitch Engage, Bleeding Through, a lot of Trustkill stuff, and European metal.” Although, she tells me that the cultural climate in which we live also serves as a major influence behind the band: “We live in a difficult time. It’s easy to be angry about things and be sad about things.” Although there’s nearly two months before Fragments of a Bitter Memory officially drops, the band hits the road at the start of September and will be playing live shows through December with the likes of Silent Planet, Motionless in White, and The Acacia Strain, if you want to catch a preview, which Emma highly recommends.
“We’ve been practicing every week this year; we really want to surprise people. We’re playing to a lot of new people, so we’re playing with production. We’re hoping people can feel the energy… We can’t wait for people to hear the record — we recorded it a year ago – and then getting out to cities we’ve never played before.”
