Dylan’s Omens shed light on the genesis of album tracks ‘Cherry Socks’, ‘Lyélum’s Lake’, ‘Grindhead,’ and ‘Weak And Pathetic’
We’ve already had a taste of what’s to come from Dylan’s Omens imminent new album, with the Aussie four-piece drip-feeding a string of singles in the meantime.
So far, the band have shared ‘Cherry Socks’, ‘Lyélum’s Lake’, ‘Grindhead,’ and ‘Weak And Pathetic’, the last of which more than readied audiences for their sophomore concept album.
Titled after the second single ‘Lyélum’s Lake’, Dylan’s Omens upcoming album is currently in production.
While that might frustrate those who are eager to bless their ears in a hurry, the band swung by Happy Mag to satisfy audiences with a track-by-track.
Below, frontman Dylan Cosgriff sheds light on ‘Cherry Socks’, ‘Lyélum’s Lake’ and ‘Grindhead,’ as well as their common set-opening song ‘Don’t Care, Dammit’.
Catch Dylan’s Omens full track breakdown below, and keep an eye out for their full album ‘Lyélum’s Lake’ due out soon.
‘Cherry Socks’
I wrote ‘Cherry Socks’ when I was 16 in about 15 minutes, and it was originally a scream of teenage angst.
Although the chorus heard on the single remains unchanged, the verses and bridge revolved around the classic ‘Mum-and-Dad-won’t-let-me-out-of-the-house!’
I originally wanted to include it on the debut album Tailing Naivsag, but it didn’t line up conceptually, so I shelved it until the new album started taking shape, then changed the lyrics in the verses and bridge to make it part of the narrative.
The song itself is really a dance to self-acceptance; experiencing isolation and loneliness due to self-loathing and self-fear, then gaining comfort in the fact that no-one is ever alone.
Its place in the new concept album is towards the end, and by the time we reach that song, the protagonist has gone through every level of self-hatred possible.
Finally, they realise that what they’re experiencing is only scary because of their own interpretation of their situation.
Furthermore, their experience of it is what makes them human in the first place, hence the lyrics ‘You should know that you’re just in humanity.’
It’s looking at the faults of being human in the face and saying ‘You know what? There’s no point being scared of you, so let’s put on our cherry socks and party.’
‘Lyélum’s Lake’
This is the first song we’ve ever released that includes piano, apart from the synth strings on ‘Dead Inside’ from the Tailing Naivsag.
That main piano riff took a good hour to come up with – which is strange, considering its simplicity.
I remember sitting down at the piano, knowing what I wanted to hear, knowing what I wanted to play, and then extracting it like a dentist from the teeth of the piano for ages.
It’s also one of the few songs we’ve got that doesn’t have any real direct, noticeable musical influences, or songs that it’s derived from.
Usually, our songs have a bunch of clear influences from different songs and artists, but the only influence this one had was from System Of A Down’s ‘Lonely Day.’ Apart from that, I can’t specifically pick out where that song came from.
This song is the title track of the new album that our recent singles and EPs are preceding. The name itself is fairly conceptual, but I want to keep its meaning a surprise for people to figure out (it’s no fun if we just give it away!).
The lyricism is very backhanded; it sounds quite positive, majestic, and peaceful, but there are a few lines in there that could have fairly malevolent undertones, such as ‘We’ll be awake forevermore, so long as we drink some more.’
The album uses drugs and alcohol as a heavy metaphor throughout, so this blatant endorsement of ‘drink[ing] some more’ seems rather sinister without context.
Keen-eyed poets will hopefully notice the realm of Sylvia Plath references used throughout the song.
She’s one of my favourite writers ever, and a lot of her poems thematically match the themes of this new album, so I paraphrased and quoted her as much as possible throughout.
‘Grindhead’
This is definitely one of our favourites to play live. It’s simple, heavy, and has a bridge section perfect for a ‘Jump The F**k Up!’
While the riff spilled out of the guitar like a waterfall, the lyrics took a while to piece together into something digestible. I was aiming for 90s-grunge-meets-modern-metal, which is partly where the final breakdown comes from.
The title went through about six different drafts, such as ‘Grinder,’ ‘Metal Head,’ and ‘Head Grinder,’ before ‘Grindhead’ was decided – it just hit the nail on the ‘head.’
One of the titles I considered was ‘Metal On Metal,’ which would’ve suited well, as the audio imagery of metal on metal is used throughout both the new album and Tailing Naivsag very frequently – the phrase itself is found in plenty of our songs.
It’s supposed to imply a sense of uncontrollable mental torment, such as hearing metal grinding on metal, which is exactly what
‘Grindhead’ delves into, but when it came to choosing a title, ‘Grindhead’ just had that little bit more of that frustrated sarcasm that shows up a lot in our songs and live shows.
Although risking spoiling the new concept album, the album is divided into four chapters, and ‘Grindhead’ marks the end of Chapter 2, in which the protagonist completes one full loop of the toxic cycle they’re trapped in, ending up where they started – feeling like ‘a broken being,’ as said in the song.
The breakdown at the end we thought was a good way to finish up the chapter – heavy, scary, and dark. We ended up extending the breakdown for our live sets, and wow: It’s just way too much fun.
‘Don’t Care, Dammit’
‘Don’t Care, Dammit’ is one of only two songs (the other being ‘Silently Suffer’) from Tailing Naivsag that’s included in our 2024 set list, and we open with it to show the audience what they’re in for – sarcastic, angry, and LOUD rock ‘n’ roll.
The song was inspired by my favourite Foo Fighters song ‘The Color And The Shape’ and Anti-Nowhere League’s ‘So What.’
The song starts with a quote from Dave Grohl, wherein he voiced his opinion on reality singing shows, and how it’s hurting plenty of great musicians.
It’s then followed by another paraphrased Grohl quote: ‘It’s your sound; respect it, stretch it, now.’ This quote really helped me with the release of Tailing Naivsag, as the song was written as an answer to my self-doubt circulating the album.
After that, a modified quote from James Hetfield, ‘I want to live, not just, not just, exist,’ once again feeding into the common theme of self-doubt.
Having a Metallica reference in the song made sense, given their infamous cover of ‘So What’ on the VMAs and Garage, Inc. During the guitar solo, I even recorded the same laugh Hetfield does during their solo in the cover (don’t tell him, please).
The song was written in about 30 minutes and ended up being the album’s saving grace. Before the song, I would go back and fourth for hours debating whether to even release the album.
I was so nervous about of judgment from people I knew, and, as the song says, spent plenty of time ‘fighting with my brain for nights on end, Goddamn.’ In the end, I just concluded, ‘Forget this, I don’t care, dammit,’ and the song was born.
From then until the album was released, that song was my fallback; anytime I had reservations about whether to release it or not, I would go back to that song, and after 13 months of making this album on my own, I’m happy to say that ‘Don’t Care, Dammit’ did a good job!
