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Alteras signs with label, will release album
By GUY D’ASTOLFO
It’s not every band that delivers a concept album as its first full-length offering.
But that’s exactly what Alteras did, and it paid off.
The five-piece act’s album “Grief” was good enough to grab the attention of Revival Recordings. The small niche label signed Alteras to a recording contract and will release “Grief” on Friday.
“Grief” is a cohesive collection of songs that cascade with emotion. It starts with a hardcore roar and gradually softens into more melodic territory.
It’s the type of sound that would be right at home on the Warped Tour, and Alteras’ members admit that is one of their goals.
“Getting on the Warped Tour would be incredible,” said Zack Orr, bassist. “That’s on our agenda. But for now it’s don’t stop playing; don’t stop writing.”
All of Alteras’ members are Austintown Fitch High grads and range in age from 19 to 25. The band has been together in one form or another since 2009, but it solidified into its present lineup two years ago, and that’s when it got serious.
The members are Orr, vocalist Jake Clasen, guitarists Jordan Woolley and Michael Dulay, and drummer Seth Donchess.
The band self-released an EP (“Shapeshifter”) in 2013, and also released “Grief” in November. After signing with Revival, it re-recorded the album at Capital House Studios in Columbus and added one song to get it ready for Friday’s re-release on the label.
Nick Mishko, the band’s manager, gets credit for bringing the album to Revival’s attention. “[Mishko] worked with Revival in the past, so he pitched it to them, and they really dug it,” said Clasen. “It was a big process [to get the deal done], but it happened out of nowhere.”
A video for the first single off the album, “Could Ever Love,” is already up on YouTube.
On Friday, the album can be purchased at all major online retailers.
As its title indicates, “Grief” tackles the subject of loss, from beginning to end.
“It’s a pretty solid representation of what we’ve been building up to,” said Clasen. “We weren’t trying to fit it into a genre. ... We just wrote it, and it came out real together, a very polished version of ourselves.”
The songs are in chronological order as they go through the stages of grief. “First is the heavy intro, the shock factor, in your face ... but by the end of the album, there is acceptance,” said Clasen.
Such a step-by-step voyage was always the plan, said Dulay, although it was created randomly.
“We had a vision to do it like that, but we weren’t writing in order,” he said. “When we were done, we said, ‘This is how it should sound.’ It has an organic feeling because we weren’t thinking about it at the time. It happened naturally.”
The topic of grief also arose naturally, a reflection of the band members’ mindset at the time.
“We had a lot of stuff going on, and we got in the studio and we bumped it out,” said Clasen. “Being in the studio gets you focused – gets everything on the table. This band is very honest and open, and we always lay everything on the table. It was stuff we needed to get off our chest.”
Although the album drops Friday, Alteras currently has no local date on the books. But that should change. The band just finished a tour and is working on locking in more shows.
“We want to tour but it’s a big deal for us to play at home,” said Orr.