An In-Depth Look at the tracks on our debut album 'Looking Forward to the End'

Welcome to our track-by-track in-depth look at our debut album, 'Looking Forward to the End'

1. "Oh Sisyphus!"

Musically, this song wasn't a straightforward birth, but the song feels like the most quintessential BMP track. Created by knocking the track back and forth between us like a tennis rally. It's got all our favourite ingredients, thumping drums, a great bassline, big walls of guitar and weird synths and strings. It's in 7/8, so it's got a slightly odd cadence to it, but it very quickly feels completely normal.

Lyrically, it started with a more conciliatory tone with the past written by GT, before switching to its final, more cynical tone after a rewrite and addition of another verse. It's about being tired of banging your head against the wall. Anger at trapping yourself in the situation you find yourself in. The chorus is realising that you can't keep living with people, situations, jobs.... whatever is pissing you off. Just stop pushing that fucking rock uphill, you daft bastard.

2. "All Faces Lie Pt.1"

Parts 1 and 2 were actually the other way round initially. This was an idea by GT for another bit for the proggier part, but it didn't work. I like the idea on its own, so I embellished it a bit and gave it a bassline and vocals. GT added in more guitars and keyboard bits, and then it was done. It just fell together so easily. It's probably one of the simplest things on the album, but it's got layers in its sound that make it stay interesting.

The lyrics are pretty blatant. I'm fucking sick of this post-truth world we live in. How did it become acceptable for politicians, news media and corporations just to outright lie without consequences? There was a time when a politician would resign if they were caught lying about what they'd done, either professionally or privately. Yeah, they might just sit at the back for a couple of years and then return, but at least there was a slight bit of accountability. Some kind of threat to weigh up if you were going to do something underhanded. Now there's no risk at all. In fact, the world's worst bullshitter is currently sitting in the fucking White House and getting away with whatever he wants.

Social Media and its constant need for pulling in numbers means that there is unlimited content all reduced to clickbait - algorithm pleasing, truth-bending horseshit. Everything is carefully presented, curated, and considered, but nonetheless horseshit.

3. "All Faces Lie Pt.2"

As I said, this was originally the first part. In fact, it was our very first song. I had this chorus with an odd 5/4 signature, with just the line "All Faces Lie". It sounded kind of interesting, but I'd never worked out what to do with it. I sent it to GT, and he immediately came up with two other sections. I added in the 4/4 verse, and I think I thought the pre-chorus should stay on one chuggy chord, which GT properly nailed the feeling of.

This track ended up being about the internal battles for truth and honesty raging inside your head. Not just that we lie to each other, but how we lie to ourselves too. Pt.1 was about the battle for truth raging in the outside world.

4. "Sunrise"

Sunrise came about initially because I'd just bought a new guitar, and I was playing around, and I hit this nice, almost chime-y chord progression. I ended up building some layers of guitars and the idea that it was a song that would grow gradually and then hit a release.

The vocals mostly just fell together, and it's always felt like a kind of fucked-up gospel song. There's a sort of fervour to it - an evangelical vibe. But the lyrics originally were about feeling totally alone. Trying to get the strength to get through another day. There's a duality at play - is the night the only bit of peace and respite you get? Or is it the daylight that brings hope after a dark night? You can take it however you want. But I will say I love the night, when everyone else has gone to sleep, and the world leaves you the fuck alone.

This song is also remixed by Slump as a bonus track, and it emerged as a thumping dance track that keeps all of its feel and zeal.

5. "Grip"

'Grip' is bleak, right up there with 'Looking Forward' for being the darkest moment on the album. It's another example of how time signatures can increase the feeling of discomfort you want to convey.

I wanted it to have a sense of detachment, a sense of being stuck just outside of what normal feels like. A lot of the guitars in the track are FX-drenched to the point where it's difficult to pick out what is guitar and what is synth. The bridge section was an intentional attempt to shake you into a happier place. The time signature becomes a conventional 4/4, and the cut-up sax solo gives it a much happier tone.

The lyrics are to the point in the verses, describing how depression and anxiety totally take hold. The chorus gives you the answers, metaphorically burning down all the things that cause you to remain in the darkest recesses of your mind.

6. "Let The Light In"

This is one of the songs that came out of me suggesting GT write something without using a guitar or bass. It's got a strange time signature, alternating between 7 and 8 beats to the bar, giving it this urgent feel that works so well. The only changes I made were fitting the structure to the vocals and putting the outro bit into 4/4.

Lyrically, the song was inspired by seeing the news coming out of Minneapolis and Portland and seeing the action and support that Americans were willing to show in the face of government-sanctioned kidnappings and the use of internment camps. It was also inspired by stories in the UK of pensioners being arrested for peacefully protesting against genocide and the story of the Filton 25, four of whom were convicted of criminal damage at a factory supplying military equipment used on civilians, but upon sentencing, the judge added 'terror connections' into the mix.

The song's message is that nowadays, individuals with wealth and power are promoting division within society to divert attention and avoid societal pressure to act ethically. As individuals, we have to be prepared to say "no".

7. "Strangest Days"

This song was another one where the music was predominantly written by GT, avoiding the use of bass or guitar in the writing stage. The low-key pre-chorus was added along with the vocals by me. In the production stage, I added a load of different sounds and textures that ended up giving the song a bit more of a funky, loose groove.

The initial song sketch that GT sent over was already called 'Strangest Days', and I used that as a jump-off point for all the lyrics. The Iran War had just begun, and it's the first reference in the song - "World on fire / Feels like the end of days / Black skies / Filled with burning rain". The lyrics were written straight after watching footage of oil-infused rain coming down in Iran after the initial round of bombings. I thought about adding in some lines about the school they bombed, but I decided against it. Nothing I could write matched that particularly awful act by a supposedly civilised country.

The lines "Religion based on fake piety / with no regard for humanity / You must see the hypocrisy" reflect my anger at the US Government's use of their warped nationalistic take on Christianity. Despite their complete lack of actions that mirror what Jesus was supposed to be about.

There are also more references later in the song to how we're being pitched against each other so we don't rise against the fuckers with all the money, whose only aim is to get more money, not use it to help others.

8. "Looking Forward"

This is either the bleakest moment or the blackest of comedy on the album. And it's set against one of the quietest, most pretty backdrops. GT's guitar and bass lines are draped in washes of synth, as the lyrics paint a story of wanting the world to end. That feeling that we've fucked it all up and we don't really deserve any more chances.

Despite our increased understanding and scientific advances, the people with the power are still only looking at financial short-term gain and don't give two shits about the planet and the majority of people on it. The second verse is either imagining what an extinction-level event would feel like on a personal basis, or just taking your own way out so you don't have to watch anymore of this shit happening.

If the Human Race were a TV show, then we jumped the shark a long time back, and the current storylines are so out there that you'd want cancellation to occur because it was getting painful to watch.

People whined on about Season 8 of Game of Thrones and how it ended, but IRL they're voting for and supporting people who are taking us into an awfully written, badly acted finale that makes absolutely no sense. Bring on a big fucking comet.

9. "Pastpresentfuture"

The lines "The Past is Dead, The Present is Sick, The Future is Dying" were hanging about in my head for a long time. Eventually, I just wanted to commit them to something, and it ended up being an industrial monstrosity. I wanted a soundscape that sounded like a mechanised military future. When I'd finished the music, GT said, "I don't think I can add anything to it", so instead we discussed how an answer to this song, that wasn't quite so pessimistic, could be good. So although the two songs are separate, they are actually two connected pieces. 'PPF' actually finishes with the same keyboard loop that the following track 'Hope' starts with.

So there aren't really any lyrics to the song apart from the refrain 'The past is dead,.....' and the other refrain being a simple "hello, hello...". The hello is a shit throwback to when people used to say "hello?" when stating that something stupid was being said or happening. Somebody told me it reminded them of the 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' pre-chorus. I suppose it's the same word repeated a few times. Maybe it is a subconscious link?

The voice samples were originally going to be longer, singular monologues on Stochastic Terrorism and recognising rises in Fascism, but I didn't get replies when I tried to get the speakers' blessings. So instead, I fell back onto idiots speaking on the public record, interspersed with the occasional reasonable voice to break up the idiocy.

The remix by Slump dropped all the speaking samples and amped up the industrial dance feel to give us something that's brutally funky - it's a Prodigy-style banger, and that's my highest praise for a tune like this.

10. "Hope"

As I said, 'Hope' is GT's reply track to 'PPF'. It was originally entirely instrumental. Later on, I came up with a couple of lines of lyrics, and we decided to put them at the end as a kind of mantra. Trying to get that balance of not saying "it's all going to be ok folks" but also getting away from saying "what's the point?" and sucking on a shotgun barrel.

After the keyboard loop at the start, the bit up to where the vocals come in reminded me of something that could have been on 'Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds', but when I mentioned that to GT, he'd never heard it, so had no clue what I was talking about (the philistine). I like that balance at the end. You get a dose of my awful cynicism in PPF, and then you get something from GT that's a bit brighter to finish on.

That's All Folks

Hope you enjoyed this in-depth look at the album. I promise in real-life we aren't quite so miserable. Especially after a few pints (or thirds of pints). So please have a listen through the album and let us know what you think, what your favourite moments are, or anything else you want to share.