Exclusive: WE ARE FURY break down debut album, ‘DUALITY’ in track-by-track review
Canadian duo WE ARE FURY have broken five months of silence to release their debut studio album, DUALITY. The record has been released via Seeking Blue, a label home to an impressive roster of alumni that includes Said The Sky, Dabin, and Illenium.
DUALITY is the culmination of a two-year process and 15 tracks, half melodic and half heavy, ranging from cinematic orchestration in “Eyes Wide Open” to dance-pop hits like “Nothing & Animals” to the duo’s first dubstep offering, “Poison.”
The duo explained,
“DUALITY is meant to represent how we as people have qualities that we like and dislike about ourselves; that’s why the music is half melodic and half heavy.”
WE ARE FURY added that DUALITY is their statement of acceptance, stating,
“At some point, if we want to become the best versions of ourselves, we have to reach a moment of self-acceptance of all the qualities that make us who we are.”
Dancing Astronaut has the pleasure of speaking with WE ARE FURY to get an in-depth, track-by-track overview of the album. Read their relation of the LP below.
“Eyes Wide Open”
WE ARE FURY: “‘Eyes Wide Open’ sets the stage for the melodic half of the album, it was actually one of the last tracks to get completed. We knew we wanted to have track one dictate a certain melody to set the mood, and then have track nine (the heavy counterpart) be a moodier version of the same melody. The track names ‘Eyes Wide Open // See What’s Broken’ came from a vocal line we added to the buildups later.
“Broken“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Broken’ was the first album song we released, it’s with Luma who is incredible and has grown immensely as an artist as well since this song was released. It’s about the vulnerabilities of loving with an open heart and how often, we let our emotions dictate what we do, even when it may not be good for us.”
“DKW“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Don’t Know Why’ is about how after a toxic relationship we are left insecure and questioning our sense of self worth. We’re scared of vulnerability and opening up to someone new, because we’re scared of making the same mistakes that caused things to fall apart in the first place.”
“RBTY“
WE ARE FURY: This was one of the cooler songs to work on, we wrote it with Alexa in LA in a session fueled by White Claws. It’s basically about a person who has an extremely toxic perception of what love is. It’s borderline masochistic. They get some sort of stimulus from trauma and pain and this is what makes them ‘feel’ so to speak. The chorus plays with the idea of basically no matter how difficult and painful things get, they will not leave because they rather feel pain than nothing at all.”
“Nothing“
WE ARE FURY: “’Nothing’ is the process of reflecting back on a relationship that you thought was ‘it,’ but ended suddenly and abruptly. If you’ve ever experienced something like that it can be really confusing and hard on your heart. Looking back at memories, experiences, and words exchanged; and couldn’t help but think ‘did at all mean nothing.’ All the late nights, the deep conversations, the intimate moments. This song is a cry for an answer to all the things left unresolved. Nothing was our first stab at a pop record and it was widely supported on Spotify editorial, Sirius, and by a lot of our artist friends like Illenium and Ekali.
“Animals”
WE ARE FURY: “‘Animals’ is a special track for us, and somehow it weirdly reflects the current state of the world. If we remove social constructs, humans are primal creatures who live by our instincts. We do this at the cost of our planet and then when things go wrong we turn a blind eye. The track has gang vocals in the chorus to reflect this tribal group feeling. We co-wrote ‘Animals’ with David Pramik at a writer’s retreat. He’s written stuff for Selena, G-Eazy, Illenium, X-Ambassadors to name a few. It was a huge honor. It’s crazy to think we can work with people we listen to on the regular or have had some kind of influence on our sound growing up.”
“Sad Story”
WE ARE FURY: “We co-wrote ‘Sad Story’ with Heather and Eden Neville in LA. The track is about anxiety and how helpless we can feel when we are victims to our own thoughts. The message in ‘Sad Story’ is basically that, ‘I will keep fighting through this because I know it will be worth it to see it through.’ Since this song is right in the middle between the melodic and heavy sides of the album, it serves as a pivot, where the first drop exists mainly in the melodic world, with a second drop that is way trappier and darker.”
“Convergence“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Convergence’ is the interlude of the album, we used it to transition between the melodic and heavy sides, we love using cinematic instruments and orchestrating them, and this was a good way of exploring that without the constraints of a full track.”
“See What’s Broken”
WE ARE FURY: “‘See What’s Broken’ was the heavy counterpart to Eyes Wide Open. We kept the same lead melody but arranged the rest of the song to build towards a heavy drop, which sets the mood for the remainder of the heavy album half.”
“Echoes“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Echoes’ is our sophomore collaboration with Micah, who is an absolute beast. We wrote ‘Echoes’ with the intention of making something a bit weirder and more experimental for us. It’s a bit more mid tempo-y and has these big cinematic drums. The lyrics are about the realization of incompatibility with a partner and the process of breaking ties in order to move on, even if the partner is against it or doesn’t want to let go.”
“Eternal”
WE ARE FURY: “‘Eternal’ is a treat for scene fans. We have drawn inspiration from metal and rock for a really long time, when we connected with Telle from The Word Alive we knew we could make something special with him. Telle is known for his screams so we actually re-worked the drops to match the energy of his screams. The first drop has a very non-conventional kick arrangement and this call-response with his screams. It’s really unique. It’s basically a war song with a bit of a spiritual angle to it.”
“Heart of Mine“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Heart of Mine’ was always meant to be a ‘project’ song. Initially it was going to be in an EP but we later decided to just add it to the album. It’s with Kobra Paige, who is a Canadian JUNO Award-nominated vocalist and frontwoman of her metal band. She is extremely talented and has a lot of raw power behind her voice. The song is about perseverance and like the chorus says; refusing to fail.”
“Poison“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Poison’ is our first dubstep song and will always hold a special place in our hearts. We resampled one of our other basses and turned it into a few wavetables, and later modulated to shape the growls. That way the sounds still existed within our world but followed the phrasings we wanted while sounding more like growls. The lyrics in this song are about a person who pretends to be a certain way, and later you find out they are not who they pretended to be, that a lot of who they are and the things they told you were untrue. You then try to move on but the person still tries to hold on. It’s basically a song about a failed relationship but instead of it being sad and nostalgic it’s angry and dubstep. We chose to end it on a melodic dubstep drop to represent the silver lining in these situations where we inevitably grow as people and learn about ourselves. Our friend George Shrouder, formerly guitarist of Out Came The Wolves, recorded guitar for this one.”
“Nightmares“
WE ARE FURY: “We have wanted to work with Gallie Fisher for a very long time before this song happened. We reached out to her and told her we had an album coming up, however we wanted to make something heavy and a bit darker with her, and she was down. The result was ‘Nightmares,’ which explores fear, and writing-wise it’s one of the more unique and boundary-pushing songs on the album. Lots of cool chords and vocal melodies. The song follows this theme of being afraid and later challenging our fears and overcoming them.”
“Resistance“
WE ARE FURY: “‘Resistance’ was actually the first song we finished from this album, and ironically it is the one that ends the album. We used it as a show opener for all of 2019’s festival season and the crowd response when the first drop hits still gives us goosebumps. Similar to ‘Eyes Wide Open’ and ‘See What’s Broken,’ this was a purely instrumental song to end the album on a euphoric note. ‘Resistance’ represents war, and the song resolves with a victorious melodic drop at the end.”
Featured image: Matthew Butcher