SKYHARBOR - “Sunshine Dust” out 9/7/18
SKYHARBOR Sunshine Dust eOne Music / Good Fight Music 7 September 2018
Eric Emery – Vocals Keshav Dhar – Guitar Devesh Dayal – Guitar Krishna Jhaveri – Bass Aditya Ashok – Drums
SKYHARBOR is a thrilling affirmation of what’s possible when unbridled creative passion, combustible energy, and steady artistic intent collide with unconventional songwriting, earworm hooks, and a will to abolish all boundaries. Whether those limitations are geographical or musical.
SKYHARBOR bridge the gap between the postmodern prog-metal movement and the broader rock world, both literally and figuratively, crossing over creatively with dedicated skill and composure without sacrificing their identity.
Sunshine Dust, the band’s nearly four years in the making third full-length album, delivers on the atmospheric and emotional promise of their earlier material, with breathtaking tectonic shifts between a wall of sound ambiance and groove.
Somewhere between the larger than life anthemic heft of Linkin Park, the esoteric experimentation and brutal fury of the Deftones, the drenched sonic tapestries of Devin Townsend, the uplifting soulful urgency of Incubus, and the nü-metal/prog evolution of Karnivool exists the ethereal plane occupied by SKYHARBOR. It’s a dimension defined by the complex and the sublime, the simple and the severe. Often within the space of a few notes, SKYHARBOR evokes the essence of the struggle for harmony in all things.
The accolades have been swift and decisive, from fans and press alike, including multiple awards from the Indian edition of Rolling Stone (Best Band, Best Album, Best Song, Best Guitarist, Best Bassist), the Jack Daniels Awards (Best Metal Band, Best Producer for Dhar), and the Metal Hammer Golden Gods, where they were nominated for Best Global Metal Band.
While the band members devote significant portions of their off-tour lives to a number of endeavors in New Delhi, Mumbai, Los Angeles, and Cleveland, SKYHARBOR is much more than an Internet-enabled “project.” Longtime bandmates Keshav Dhar (guitar), Devesh Dayal (guitar) and Krishna Jhaveri (bass) together with Eric Emery (vocals) and Aditya Ashok (drums) forged a rapport most traditionally-assembled bands would envy, coalescing into a true collective while touring with the Deftones, Babymetal, and The Contortionist.
They are as at home in the studio as they are in clubs and theaters, or on the festival stage, with high-profile appearances at Alive Festival (as main support to Lamb of God) in India; Euroblast Festival in Germany; UK Tech Fest (main support to Veil of Maya), UK; Download Festival, UK, 2014; Dissonance Festival, Italy, 2014; Graspop Metal Meeting, Belgium, 2014; and the Bacardi NH7 Weekender, in India (on more than one occasion) to name just a few.
The group’s improbable beginnings trace back to New Delhi, where Dhar composed music of such high caliber that it enabled him to recruit like-minded musicians around the world while garnering early support from authentic metal icons like Chris Adler (Lamb Of God) and Marty Friedman (ex-Megadeth). SKYHARBOR made their live debut as an instrumental trio, inching forward with steadfast determination, growing to encompass a diverse sound as a five-piece band, culminating with the well-received albums Blinding White Noise: Illusion and Chaos (2012) and Guiding Lights (2014).
On Sunshine Dust, the immersive cacophony SKYHARBOR first perfected in the studio environment, while as polished and precise as ever, shines with a new almost analog warmth, born of the kind of collaborative camaraderie that only happens when musicians trust each other enough to experience growth.
This is music filled with empowering inspiration and sweeping passions, a supernatural slice of transcendent sonic indulgence.
SKYHARBOR erode the boundaries between traditional hit making structures and technicality dexterity with grace and poise, employing the gentle force of the changing of the tides, in all of its stealthily bombastic earth shaping might.