Low Level Flight’s debut album, Urgency, kicks off with a soaring ‘80s-style keyboard and a vocal effect on the upbeat rocker “Change For Me,” about that bittersweet male fantasy of finding out your girlfriend has cheated with another girl. It not only serves as the first single, but sets up the odd humour that pervades many of the band’s lyrics.
The furious and pumping “Hate You” is just a pure upfront call on an ex girlfriend, who is so eloquently referred to in the song as “a wonderful disgrace” and “waste of space.” “If I’m going down, so are you,” Ryan sings. There are also darker songs, such as “Hesitate,” featuring the line “I’ve got to save my soul on the way down” and “Turnaround,” about a guy’s choice to do drugs in front of his little brother and the impact it had. “Growing up with you was torture” is just one example of the poignant and emotional lines in that song. There’s also the reflective, self-attacking “When Will I Learn,” which goes “I do it to myself / Addicted to the pain / When will I ever learn? / I’ve got no one to blame.”
On a less personal note, the rock song “Holiday” which has a reggae vibe and touches on heavier issues, includes the line “Get out / Your flag is slowly burning / Step up / You’re running out of time”. It’s a song about the conflict and effect of war, not just between one country and another, but between a country and a person living within it as well,” Ryan explains.
The band — comprised of Ryan Malcolm (vocals/guitar), Shaun Noronha (bass) and James Rooke (rhythm guitar / keyboards), Dave Carter (lead guitar) and Brandon Merenick (drums) — all share the same brand of dark humor. At one point, the guys in Low Level Flight were considering an album cover for Urgency that showed the band in a macabre ambulance scene. James says, “we thought it would look pretty ridiculous”, but Shaun explains “then we said ‘screw it, it’s probably too expensive!”
To record the album, the band headed into Toronto’s Vault Studios with producer Mike Borkosky (illScarlett), who took a creative approach to the making of the record, occasionally using different plug-ins, an ‘80s guitar-keyboard, vocal effects, and other cool ideas to ensure the album had a unique, yet accessible quality.
“I’ve known Mike for three years now. He was my musical director on my first tour, and we had done some demo work together, so I knew we’d have a good working chemistry,” says Ryan. “Mike and I were on the same page from the start. We didn’t want to create your run-of-the-mill, cookie cutter pop record that was bland and would sound like everything else. The end product is exactly what we envisioned it to be.”
Source: http://artists.letssingit.com/low-level-flight-dnvqk/biography
