Music
Looking back at the crushing influence of Parkway Drive's Horizons
The beloved 2007 album truly marked a shift for the band from hardworking local heroes to legendary household names.
Kicking off this weekend at the sold out Unify Gathering in Victoria, Byron Bay metalcore monsters Parkway Drive are taking their classic 2007 record, Horizons, out for a nostalgic (and very sold out) run around the country.
Parkway Drive’s successful legacy – 15 years, 5 albums, 2 DVDs, a book, a split, an EP and approximately 1 million shows in every possible place on earth (well, not Antarctica… yet) – has been built on passion and an unstoppable work ethic, but it was truly with the release of their second album Horizons that all the pieces came together, pushing the band from underground heroes to a mainstream force to be reckoned.
Recorded once again with Killswitch Engage mad man Adam D in the USA and, thanks to a freshly inked deal with SoCal punk powerhouse Epitaph Records, Horizons was the first Parkway Drive record to receive a simultaneous worldwide release. Early comments from the band promised a harder, faster and heavier album – quite the feat when considering their lauded debut LP, Killing With A Smile, wasn’t exactly an easy listening experience.
Of course, they came good on that bold promise. While their peers were toying with clean vocals and traditional songwriting tropes, first single, Boneyards, opened in a hail of blast beats and tremolo picking, hallmarks of a more extreme brand of metal than the band’s usual mosh fare. Launching into a crushing breakdown that somehow acted as a catchy chorus and ending in the infamous “there’s blood in the water” pit call, for the Parkway faithful eagerly awaiting new material from their heroes, Boneyards was the equivalent of getting hit with a brick between the eyes. On the flip side, the emotional, melodic Carrion, cobbled together from off cut riffs in the studio at vocalist Winston McCall’s insistence, was a bonafide hit for the fivesome, inciting massive singalongs at shows and still a live set staple to this day.
Horizons debuted at #6 on the ARIA chart, an absolutely unheard of achievement for an Australian heavy band at the time. Now in 2018, it’s commonplace to see local heavy acts make a serious chart impact on debut. Recent albums by the likes of The Amity Affliction, In Hearts Wake, Northlane, Ocean Grove and Hellions have all landed at the pointy end of the chart, but as is often the case, it was the trailblazing efforts of Parkway Drive and Horizons that set the benchmark.
Notably, the success of Horizons also pushed Parkway Drive into even bigger venues here in Australia and ushered in the first of many insane shows at the Roundhouse in Sydney. On the Horizons album tour, demand was so intense the band had to do two nights at the Roundhouse, for a total of 4,400 tickets. Two years prior, the Killing With A Smile tour stopped by Sydney’s 400 capacity Annandale Hotel… a casual growth of 1100%. Again, this sort of event seems commonplace in 2018 with the varied successes of Australia’s heavy artists, but at the time, this was the most mind-blowing event anyone could fathom. The band’s growth in Europe similarly picked up in line with Australia, Parkway now routinely headlining festivals and bills over bands they had idolised in their early stages to thousands of rabid Europeans. The Horizons cycle in Australia peaked with the ludicrous Sweatfest of summer 2008, featuring international hot shots Suicide Silence, A Day To Remember, The Acacia Strain and Aussie act Confession, hitting Brisbane’s 9,000 capacity outdoor Riverstage venue – another mind-boggling achievement from a band who seem incapable of conforming to expectation.
Looking back, Horizons has more than withstood the test of time. The metalcore sound the band were exploring was at peak saturation in 2007, with acts like the aforementioned Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, As I Lay Dying, Shadows Fall, Atreyu, Unearth, Bleeding Through, God Forbid and countless others competing for attention whilst all simultaneously pivoting to the “metal” side of “metalcore” both aesthetically, sound and tour-wise. Meanwhile, Parkway Drive were just being Parkway Drive – a couple of surfers from a small town not taking anything too seriously while simultaneously making some of the most crushing music the country had heard. They sure weren’t reinventing the wheel musically with Horizons but managed to refine their approach and inject so much energy and character into their efforts, whilst lacking any pretension to reign supreme in a crowded scene. The ascendant deathcore movement was in its infancy, a likely influence on the increasing extremity, while The Acacia Strain and Bury Your Dead’s thunderous chugging would have impacted the lower tunings. A decade on, it’s interesting to see how many of those peer bands have either broken up or have experienced a rapid decline in fortunes – only one band has continued growing year on year. Go on, can you guess who?
The influence of Horizons cannot be understated. A young A Day To Remember specifically tapped Adam D for production on their mega-breakthrough 2009 album, Homesick, due to how savage he made Parkway’s guitars sound on Horizons. While the sub-genre trends rolled on - from Swedish metal riffing, to deathcore and pop punk leaning “easycore”, Rise Records crabcore, key mosh and however many more –core suffix genres you can throw out - the influence of Parkway Drive and Horizons has remained steadfast and can be seen with the album constantly being referenced by younger artists as a key influence. Parkway Drive picking younger acts to come on tour with them have since become leaders in their own right – Architects, August Burns Red, The Ghost Inside and Northlane, to name a few.
In the decade since, Parkway Drive have become a heavy metal household name, regularly appear on the main stages of huge festivals alongside your uncle’s favourite classic rock bands, successfully added new elements to their sound and continue to stray from their initial precise white hot fury to ever greater heights, but the benchmark will always remain Horizons. Just remember to stretch first, you know you’ll be jumping in that Boneyards mosh pit, age be damned. THERE’S BLOOD IN THE WATER!
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