Gloom In The Corner Unleash Their Darkest Chapter Yet On ‘Royal Discordance’

‘If this is actually going to be it, then we need to make it hit a fucking freight train!’

Mikey Arthur, vocalist, lyricist and possibly the evil mastermind behind Gloom In The Corner, describes to me the impact of one of the most emotionally heart breaking moments I’ve ever experienced in music on their new album Royal Discordance. The album continues the story of characters from previous albums who…you know, lets have Mikey tells us.

‘It is part two to our album from ‘Trinity’. We treat our story as TV show arcs. Everything from our first album ‘Fear Me’ up to ‘Ultima Pluvia’ in 2020 is the ‘Fear Me’ arc we like to call it. Whereas this one’s like the ‘Trinity’ or ‘Apocalyptic’ arc, which started with ‘Jericho’ and ‘Trinity’. This is the direct continuation from the backend of ‘Trinity’s’ closing track ‘Hail To The King’.

‘It focuses on the battle between King Baphicho forces and Clara’s resistance force that forms right at the start of the album while the King comes in at the end of ‘Hail To The King’ and pretty much follows that journey. There’s a lot of side characters or older characters that come back that weave their way in and out of the story, but the predominant, and I guess synopsis of the album is following that resistance force and how they kind of fight back against this King’s reign up until the very end.’

The album is an adrenaline rush or fight, fire, arrogance, narcissism and love played to an electric backdrop of rapid music and vocals that come in from all sides, burrow their way into your head and take over. I strongly suggest listening to the album while reading the lyrics to get the full magnitude of what a wonderful artistic creation this is. Like any sonic movie, the shocking ending in the epic Love 1 : A Quaver Through The Pale and Love 2: A Walk Amongst The Poppy Fields will enthral you in ways you must surrender your senses to feel.

‘Love 1’ was actually written back in 2018, 2019. It was written a long time ago, and it’s the last of my back catalogue of fully fleshed out songs that we used for this record. As you can probably gather, I’ve pieced together a lot of the story stuff well in advance. So, using that song for that person’s death was always going to be on the cards. When I wrote that, it was with that intention in mind and immediately having to get into that head space, well how are we going to do this? I know that once we do this one, we kind of had a set rule after ‘Trinity’ of not bringing back characters if we’re killing them. So, if this is actually going to be it, then we need to make it hit a fucking freight train.’

‘Originally there was a version of the record where there was only going to be two albums per se, and the second one, the part two to ‘Trinity’ was going to be the finishing of that arc just so we can close everything off and move onto the next one if we wanted to. I decided, no, I want to dedicate a full album to this conflict that’s happening. Originally that was going to be in the middle of the album, so we just shifted it to the end, which I think was a smart idea.’

The swagger of Nope (Hollow Point Elysium) is in the middle now, and is a crafty, arrogant piece of work with returning character Jay, that stands out as sure fire live belter and one I hope to hear when they band tour next month with King 810 across Australia.

‘With Jay it’s very easy, and Sherlock, to be honest. It’s very easy for me to slip into that kind of narcissistic, arrogant, ‘I’m better than you’ kind of attitude, which you can also see on ‘Assassination Run’ because I did those characters for so long over the ‘Fear Me’ arc and I did a whole TikTok with them as well. Getting into that character is really, really easy for me.

‘Nope’, was the second last song written for the record before I went to the States to go record it properly. We’ll say movies is the inspiration, but a lot of Jay’s background and him as a character comes from stuff like Max Payne, John Wu films, John McClain and The Punisher and a lot of those characters from the eighties, nineties and video games all the way through. That was my ode and love letter to that because what homie is doing for most of the story is just being a belligerent dickhead that just tequilas his way through. That was where ‘Nope’s’ inspiration came from, it was a love letter to a lot of those films and video games that actually inspired him.’

I have to ask Mikey, with characters been so well developed, and especially the evil characters, is there a little of Mikey in them?

‘Yeah, a hundred percent. When I first started writing my initial versions of him, it was very much a self-reflection of me but taken to the absolute utmost extremes. Whereas as time has gone along, I’ve strayed a lot from who he is as a character, which is I think a very much a good thing, at least I’d like to think so. He started off initially as a semi self-insert kind of thing but absolutely twisted to the worst extremes. I find it a lot more fun playing it because it almost feels like playing a very evil version of me. So, I guess that’s what also makes it easier to slip into at least his character and Sherlock’s.’

Interview By Iain McCallum

ROYAL DISCORDANCE – OUT FEBRUARY 27
https://bfan.link/royal-discordance

Upcoming Tour Dates:

Supporting King 810
Tickets from Destroy All Lines

Wednesday 4 March – Jive Bar, Adelaide

Thursday 5 March – Max Watts, Melbourne

Friday 6 March – Crowbar, Sydney

Saturday 7 March – King Street Warehouse, Newcastle

Sunday 8 March – Crowbar, Brisbane

Hellbound Cruise 2026

Thursday 22 October – Sunday 25 October