Killing Floor

Rival Shadows

Mental health awareness has never been so prominent in the music industry than it has over the last twelve months. Through the combination of isolation through lockdowns and grass roots musicians and venues being left to fend for themselves during the Covid Pandemic, more and more songwriters are channelling their most personal feelings in hopes of reaching out to people in their wider communities. Through their music, these artists hope to open up the conversation of mental health and at the same time make those who listen, feel just a little bit less, alone.

So, when penning the follow up to his break out debut single ‘Brief’, Lancashire native and producer Rival Shadows took the decision to dive headfirst into his own battles with anxiety and the end result is a track that blends the best the Brit pop has to offer with a contemporary splash of electro rock. ‘Killing Floor’ is a track that packs a punch but almost has a sense of restriction about it. As the track opens we are treated to rolling drum beat that is almost innocuous in is style and is accompanied by an equally timid keyboard riff. But as you are just about to let down your guard the full weight of the song leaps out at you and from that point you are carried along a churning soundscape of driving guitars, thunderous drums, and crunching bass.

Lyrically the song is an aggressively honest take on Rival Shadows’s personal experience with trying to overcome anxiety and the side effects it can have on you. With lyrics like “….Like a hostage to myself….”, “….It’s warfare we don’t choose….”, these lyrics starkly paint the reality of suffering with anxiety but also highlight the theme of wanting to take back control during these moments of anxiety. Almost as though by acknowledging these moments for what they are suffers could find a way of taking the control away from the anxiety. The song also uses the image of the ‘Killing Floor’ as a way of pointing out how that if you allow your anxiety to overwhelm you you could wind up loosing all sense of yourself and disappear into it.

Another element to this track worth highlighting is the drum pattern. As stated earlier the drums introduce the song with a rolling pattern that allows the song to create its full impact when the rest of the composition comes in. However, this rolling pattern then continues throughout the verses over which Rival Shadows narrates his internal conflict with his own anxiety. Now whether on purpose or not, this combination of inner turmoil presented by the lyrics and the rolling melody of the drums create an almost bubbling effect, as though the frustration towards his own anxiety is bubbling beneath the surface of the music and the choruses act as the loosening of this frustration, hence the explosive nature of them, its just a thought.

Overall ‘Killing Floor’ is a confident follow up to a debut single and is evidence of Rival Shadows wide ranging ability to both write and produce hard hitting and pointing material. For many people with anxiety this song will be one that cuts to the heart of the realities that few people in their lives can ever comprehend. Though anxiety is often fought in silence, Rival Shadows has made his statement of intent to bring that fight into the open.

Listen to Killing Floor

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