Our Hollow, Our Home: Tobias Young’s track-by-track guide to new album, Burn In The Flood

Tomorrow (May 28) Southampton metalcore crew Our Hollow, Our Home will release their new album Burn In The Flood – the raging follow-up to 2018’s In Moment // In Memory.

“We are immensely proud of this album, and we truly believe it to be our finest body of work to date,” vocalist and guitarist Tobias Young tells Kerrang!, emphatically.

Reflecting on some of the most important issues that have impacted the world in recent years – from mental illness and suicide to much-needed political and societal upheaval – as well as doomed relationships and videogames, Burn In The Flood is a vibrant tapestry of OHOH’s community and shared experience.

Here, Tobias guides us through each song on the record and what they mean to the band…

“From the moment we wrote this song, we knew that it had to be the lead single for the record, as it completely encapsulates everything we’ve built on and everything we’ve become. I remember hearing the opening riff for the first time, and just thinking, ‘Yep, this is what people need to hear from us next.’ Lyrically, the song focuses on the theme of an emotional breakdown within a family home, and how you can feel like you’re being torn in each and every direction by those you love the most.

“Whilst there is no distinct narrative throughout this record – unlike our previous albums Hartsick and In Moment // In Memory – there is an underlying theme of being over-encumbered by your own emotions, thus ‘burning’ in the ‘flood’. It just felt like the perfect way to open the record, and we loved that concept so much that we decided to name the whole record after the track.”

“Failsafe is a brutal conversation with yourself about your hopes and fears. Everyone in this band has questioned – especially over the last 12 months – whether putting everything on the line for a chance at doing something you truly believe in will ever actually work out. Imagine staring at yourself in the mirror everyday and having to decide if you’re going to be the positive or negative version of yourself, whilst keeping the other at arm’s length. As always, writing this album, probably more so than any other record we’ve written, was made possible by the love and support of our #TeamOHOH family. Together with our supporters, we are the children of the fire, and through any adversity we will always burn.”

“If In Moment was act one and In Memory was act two, we now close this chapter of Our Hollow, Our Home with In Retrospect. When you look at the five stages of grief, people tend to think of it as a linear process, but it’s really not. Having been fortunate enough to help so many people with our last record, and hear so many touching stories of both love and loss, we felt it was necessary to touch on this subject one final time. Performing those songs live really took an emotional toll on everybody in the band, but hearing people sing those words back to us at every show really helped eased that pain. As always, this band and its fans are a family, and we encourage anyone struggling to speak out.”

“If you’ve ever been in a relationship that was so wrong for you, but you were completely blind to it at that point in time, then this song is for you. Coming to terms with those feelings can feel like you’ve been hit by a truck, but the weight that it lifts from your shoulders can be really cathartic, and letting go isn’t just the fairest thing for you as an individual, but for the other person involved too.”

“The closest thing to a feel-good summer banger that OHOH have probably ever written. It’s an anthem for the underdogs and anybody who feels like they don’t really fit in. Lyrically it’s particularly poignant after the year we’ve all been through, because with the slow return of live music, those better days we’ve all been longing for are just around the corner – pun fully intended.”

“As a band, we have never really taken a political stance with our lyrics, but over the last 18 months, certain things have happened throughout our world that we simply couldn’t stay silent on. This band has and will always stand for equality and justice, and there comes a time where you can’t just stand idly by and have to speak up to be a voice for those who need to be heard.”

“Arguably this is one of the most important tracks on the album. For too long, poor mental health in young men has been seen as a weakness to the outside world, and with suicide rates in the UK at an all time high, this outdated taboo needs to be broken as soon as possible. ‘Man up’ mentality is both toxic and dangerous, and we simply won’t stand for it. To anyone who is struggling and feels like they have to bottle up their own emotions to save face or be accepted, please know that there are plenty of people and organisations that you can speak to, and the OHOH show/Facebook group/Discord will always be a safe space for those who need it.”

“Remember Me was written as a suicide note addressed to yourself. Unfortunately, a lot of people have been through a time in their life where they felt like there was no way out and no light at the end of the tunnel. The concept behind this song was roughly based on the idea of hearing your own eulogy after you’d taken your own life, and realising that there is always another way and a hand reaching out to you when you’re in the darkest of places."

“If there is anything we all love more than stereotypical metalcore, it’s video games. It’s funny how characters you play as and meet in these fictitious worlds can sometimes be more relatable than people in real life, which is how ended up writing Children Of Manus. Feeling like you’ve lost all sense of humanity and not even knowing who you are anymore came directly from the Dark Souls series of games, and felt all too relatable for us. Manus was a human character who lost his way to the point of becoming everything he swore he would never become – a literal monster.”

“The first official OHOH ballad. When writing this album, drew influence from such a wide array of bands and genres. Blood takes a direct influence from bands like Bad Wolves and Nickelback, while still retaining the signature OHOH sound at its core. It’s an honest song about feeling like you could have done more for someone when they were really struggling.”

“The last track on the record tackles the concept of addiction. It’s about forming unhealthy habits and not realising that they are negatively impacting your life before you feel like it’s too late. From the moment we finished writing this song, we knew that it had to be both a single and the final track of the album. The last lyric of the album felt particularly powerful as it could have perfectly slotted into any of the 11 songs that make up Burn In The Flood.”

Our Hollow, Our Home's new album Burn In The Flood is released May 28.

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