For Chicago’s Madina Lake, working with esteemed producer David Bendeth (Paramore) on their eagerly-anticipated second album Attics To Eden was an honour. By the same token, the two months they spent at Bendeth’s House Of Loud Studios in New Jersey was humbling and an experience tantamount to rock n’ roll boot camp.
“David broke us down - he was like a drill sergeant,” bassist and backing vocalist Matthew Leone says, of the first time Madina Lake played him some new material. “I was totally frazzled by the end of the first day. We thought it would be easy, because we knew the songs were there. We thought we’d come in, and record them. But when we played them for him that first time, he ripped us apart. He completely deconstructed us, and it hurt. But the pain was well worth it.” “It was challenging making this record,” echoed brother and lead vocalist Nathan. “At the end of the day, we are super proud of how it’s come out. I think we blew the first album out of the water.”
Madina Lake have written impassioned and infectious tunes which meld ethereal, hypnotic elements with gargantuan riffs and huge choruses. And the band feel they’ve found their true sound. “The first record was us exploring,” Matthew elaborates. “With more life and experience under our belts, discovering who we are as individuals and as a group, we’ve made the record that fits who we are now. Every artist and musician, it takes them a minute. We took that time, we toured, and now, we know who we are and that’s the record we’ve made.”
Attics To Eden takes the listener on an auditory voyage across layer upon diverse layer of sound. The 12 songs on the album - including “Never Take Us Alive”, “Let’s Get Out of Here”, “Legends”, “Statistics”, “Silent Voices Kill”, and the guitar-less “Friends And Lovers” - are replete with otherworldly atmospherics, epic guitars, intricate drum-work, melodic choruses, imposing bass lines, and Nathan’s unpredictable, inescapable vocals. It’s a rock n’ roll assault on the senses, and that’s just what the band - rounded out by guitarist and programming genius Mateo Camargo and drummer Dan Torelli – was aiming for. “Our favorite records were ones that didn’t have one dull moment,” Matthew says. “We wanted to make a real record, a genre-less record and a timeless record. I think there are musicians like the White Stripes, where less is more - undoubtedly. Then there are bands like the Smashing Pumpkins or Nine Inch Nails, where they want all of these components attacking the ears from different angles, at all times. We’re the latter, the kind of band that wants as many components as possible.”
Madina Lake have hit the road with Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, and Taking Back Sunday. They’ve also shared stages with Paramore and Gym Class Heroes, and have just landed a major slot on this summer’s Warped Tour. In the UK, the band have adorned multiple front covers and their debut is approaching silver certification.
In their earliest beginnings, they set out to release three albums which would tell the story of Madina Lake, a town of their own creation, which would serve as the canvas for a larger message. The first section focused on the town socialite, who goes missing, and the reaction the town’s inhabitants have. “We wanted to make three installments of this sort of grandiose statement,” Matthew says. “The first was about celebrity obsession; this is part two of that, which continues the mystery.” “This one goes completely surreal…like universal,” Nathan adds. “There’s elements of spiritual escape and almost science fiction aspects to it, but we’re sticking closely to our story’s main objective, which is good vs. evil. We didn’t want to repeat anything we did on the first one; we didn’t really want to touch on the same topics. You have to put faith in the people that support you to see your vision out and develop with you.”
But one need not know the story to appreciate their poetics. “People have the same basic sets of emotions,” Matthew explains. “The spectrum of emotions is not that big, so whatever you’re talking about, I think people can file it under their own experience. If you do something that’s not true to your heart, it’s going to be contrived and it’s not going to connect. As much as we try to follow this story line, we make sure they’re based on real events and real things that we’ve gone through; things we’ve experienced and feel passionately about. I think people around the world can connect to a similar string of emotions that they go through, whether they’re in China or Italy or Belarus. People go through the same gamut of emotions and that’s first and foremost in our songwriting.”
