Band: Arch Enemy
Song: “Reason To Believe”
Album: Will To Power
Release Date: September 7th, 2017
Label: Century Media Records
Vocalist Alissa White-Gluz commented:
“When it came time to record the vocals for ‘Reason To Believe’ and Michael had presented me with the lyrics, I knew I would need to get in a special mindset to ensure the right emotions would pervade my voice. I thought about the blurry moments in which I had said those exact words to myself: ‘Stop hurting yourself’; ‘They hate what they don’t understand’; ‘Always keep on fighting.’
I also promptly remembered how futile this self-talk was and how I only really listened when someone ELSE would say it to me. So, I thought that perhaps this song could be that ‘someone else’ – a best friend we could all secretly share and rely upon.
I thought about who I would say these words to and how I would want them to be heard; how I needed to express them in order to get through to someone who might be as accustomed to the glass prison as I used to be. I visualized sitting down next to a familiar. icy river, face to face with someone very close to me whom I have been trying to keep afloat for decades; someone whose pain and suffering matters as much to me as my own, if not more.
I thought of how my recurrent advice only had a momentary effect and how, once we’d parted ways, the cacophonic little voices screaming the opposite would ignite.
Music, however, transmutes words into thoughts and sentences into mantras. ‘If I could get people to sing along they would be subconsciously performing positive self-talk’, I thought. Songs we love get stuck in our heads so we need to consider what we fill them with.
I wanted this song to be the buoy that could keep our heads above water whilst also anchoring us to the Earth; to be a reliable landmark amongst tumultuous waves and to light the way through the darkest and loneliest obscurity.
Music has a way of speaking to us the way no one else can. It gives us an intimate moment of introspection that is also shared with millions, like a collective consciousness. I have seen the power of believing in one’s self and how quickly things crumble when we don’t.
I have read and heard so many stories from people all around the world describing how they’ve found their own reason to believe through Arch Enemy and that genuinely inspires me and keeps me going. The story is far from done, so please help us help others by sharing your experience; you might be that light in the dark more than you’ll ever know.
Crazy to think that 2018 is coming to a close. Let’s celebrate with some visuals set to ‘Reason to Believe’, available now as a single!”
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