Since 2012, Reno band Weight of the Tide has been pulverizing listeners with heavy-handed doom metal—that takes on extra depth when one listens to the lyrics.
The drop-tuned riffs and slow-paced songs are filled with passages that intend to ease listeners as they headbang. Newest single “Void” includes the introspective lyrics: “Be careful thoughts betray you / With the stories that they tell / And your soul is on the line / But the truth just won’t align / All the worries that enslave you / Hide the life that’s come to save you.”
The band is set to release a new album, What Pale Victory, on Friday, Sept. 13. That same day, they will host an album release show at Cypress Reno.
During a recent phone interview, guitarist and vocalist Mark Moots explained how the journey to releasing What Pale Victory was filled with hardship.
“When we released (All Told, the band’s last album), our other guitar-player and singer, Jes Phipps, had been diagnosed with cancer, so we entered into that album with him quite literally fighting for his life,” Moots said. “He’s good; he’s healthy, and we’ve been working on this music since then, but kind of at a measured pace, because there’s treatment, surgeries and all those things. We stuck together and worked through it—and then obviously there was this thing that happened in 2020. The world basically shut down, so we didn’t see each other.”
What Pale Victory came to fruition after struggles both inside and outside of the band. The record finally crossed the finish line due to support from the community and the band’s record label, Undergroove Records.
“We finally decided over a year ago that it was time to finally record these songs, and we enlisted the help of some local folks, and recorded drums with Zac Damon, of ZOINKS!, Screeching Weasel and Big in Japan fame,” Moots said. “The rest of it was all done with a guy named Billy Romeo who has a studio in town called Lumberyard. Our record label is based in the U.K., Undergroove Records, and they’re kind enough to continue supporting us and putting this stuff out. The album was finished just about a year ago, but we’re now just finally ready.”
For a band that already deals with emotionally charged lyrics, their experiences since the last album have only added more fuel to the songwriting fire.
“Generally, our band does have kind of a vibe, which is rather doomy and melancholic, but there are definitely a few songs that are more pointed and direct,” Moots said. “As far as speaking to the experiences of the last few years, some of it’ll be really apparent, and some of it might be a little more vague, which is usually our forte, but I think it’s important. I think it’s a good way to tell this story and propel it out there and let it live in the past, where it should stay.”
That said, Weight of the Tide’s music isn’t all heavy, all the time. Moots explained that a few positive moments appear on What Pale Victory.
“We often describe our stuff as doomy, but there is this sort of, poetically, silver lining on the black cloud,” he said. “It’s always kind of sad and resigned and morose, but there is this spirit of hope that permeates through it. It’s weirdly positive for being as dire and down as it comes off.”
Through health scares and global crises, Weight of the Tide’s brand of doom picked up speed.
“I think the previous two records are a bit more sludgy, but we have some more up-tempo material and slightly more aggressive stuff on this one,” Moots said. “That wasn’t a conscious decision; it’s just how things were coming together. It fits the feelings that we were having, where there is this sort of urgency to some of it. That probably took more of a back seat on the previous material. It sounds like us, but it definitely is a little more amped up.”
While different, “Void,” the aforementioned debut single off What Pale Victory, still fits in the band’s canon.
“There are times where, in the past, I’ve sat down and been like, ‘All right, we’ve got to write a fast song,’ but then it doesn’t work,” Moots said. “… I’ve never been good at sitting down to be like, ‘OK, I’m going to write a Motörhead song,’ because that’s Motorhead. I can emulate it, but it’s never going to be as good as it would have been if I just sat down and thought, ‘Well, I have this riff, and if it comes out sounding a bit like Motorhead, awesome.’ I think honesty is the most important thing. We sound how we sound, and we know that we’re not going to reinvent the wheel at this point.”
Moots said he and his bandmates are making the most of every moment, including their upcoming release show.
“We’ve all been playing in bands since forever around this area, so we are kind of, I suppose, scare quotes, ‘veterans of the scene,’” Moots said. “It’s kind of a big deal for us, especially at this stage in our lives, to be releasing a new album on vinyl and CD, on a record label from the U.K. again, so I wanted it to at least appear as if this is an event, and that you should not miss this. Speaking to that without sounding too arrogant: I tried to pick the best bands that I could think of that would make a really compelling bill, and it turns out that we’re friends with members of all of these bands.”
Moots said there’s something in the show’s lineup “for anybody who’s interested in hard rock or heavy metal or loud rock or whatever the fuck you want to call it.”
“Changing the Design leans into more of the radio-rock listener, and it’s very melodic and big and bombastic,” he said. “Kanawha is this grungy, doomy-sludgy thing, and then Cyanate is like Lamb of God, and the more extreme end of mainstream metal. It provides a really cool cross section of what Reno does offer, as far as that musicscape. The fact that it’s all ages is going to be fun, because we don’t often see younger folks at our shows, because we’re a bunch of old men, but I’m hoping that the youth still love heavy metal as they should—and the Cypress is a great room.”
The What Pale Victory release party is coming at a great time for DIY in the Reno music scene, Moots said.
“It seems like the Reno scene is actually doing fairly well, better than it has been in quite a while,” Moots said. “I think that a lot of local bands are really embracing this sort of DIY spirit that is 100% necessary in today’s landscape, because record labels and things like that aren’t as important in a lot of ways. You can do it yourself, so I do see a lot of young bands who are booking DIY tours and making videos and playing and promoting, and that breeds a strong scene, because you have to feed it. You can’t just sit back and hope people show up. It takes work and blood and sweat and tears and effort, and I see people doing that—not to mention promoters and venues that are open to allowing this loud bullshit into their rooms. Maybe there’s something even better coming along, but I think it’s far better than it has been in a long time.”
Weight of the Tide will host the What Pale Victory release show at 8 p.m., Friday, Sept. 13, at Cypress Reno, 761 S. Virginia St., in Reno. Tickets are $12 in advance, and $15 on the day of the show. For tickets and more information, visit cypressreno.com. For more on Weight of the Tide, visit weightofthetide.bandcamp.com