“Elevated” is how Anthony Martinez, frontman of metalcore band Dark Divine, would describe the band’s new album in one-word. With a collection of melodies that pump life into the metal music scene and encapsulates their individuality as a band, Dark Divine is reaching new heights with Undead Melody, an album that showcases all they’ve built up to.
Formed in 2021, Dark Divine is composed of frontman Anthony Martinez, guitarist Robby Lynch, bassist Cory Scissorhands, and drummer Triston Blaize. With only being a band for half a decade, Undead Melody comes at a special point in their careers where they can show how far they’ve come, highlighting their growth and expressive performance style that has come with experience.
While gearing up for their May 29 album release date, Dark Divine has stayed busy. In mid-April, the band embarked on a European tour, which wrapped up on May 10, with the intense, pop metal band Smash Into Pieces that offered its own adventures and challenges. “It was one of the most humbling yet gratifying experiences I have experienced in a tour,” Martinez says.
In the five years that Dark Divine has been a band, they’ve spent the majority of their performance time cultivating an audience home to America and Canada, making their name familiar to those confined to these areas. However, when they went overseas to Europe, on tour with Smash Into Pieces, they experienced stops with audiences that had never heard of them, offering a new challenge of pulling new fans into their world.
“We truly feel like this is the best music we have ever written.”
“Bringing the performance that we have developed and refined over the last five years to a fresh audience who we haven’t won over yet was an extremely humbling experience in the best possible way,” Martinez says. “As a frontman, I really enjoyed returning to the challenge of winning over a crowd who wasn’t familiar with us.”
In leading up to Undead Melody’s release date, the palpable anticipation has been hitting Martinez. “On the day this album is released, there will be a tidal wave of relief that washes over me,” Martinez says.
This album didn’t emerge from a straightforward, easy-flowing process, but was rather a true test to the band’s ability to adapt and overcome, with it taking about a year to write. Excitingly enough, the long days of bringing this album to life was worth it, as the finished product encapsulates their best moments and all they’ve built as a band in their five years.
“We truly feel like this is the best music we have ever written,” Martinez says., “In knowing that, [we] have been in absolute agony not being able to reveal it to our audience.”
Martinez had a small dose of relief from the anticipation of this release when the band played an unreleased song over the PA system for their VIP audience on their headliner run. “Seeing people react to the new stuff was so satisfying,” Martinez says. “It was like revealing a secret you had been holding onto forever. So it’s safe to say, on May 29th I will be a very happy person.”
With about half of the album already released as singles pre-release, the positive audience reaction they’ve received has given the group validation and confidence in this new album. “I feel like we share a lot of taste with our audience in terms of music, so when we write songs that scratch our own brains, it ends up scratching theirs just as much,” Martinez says.
When writing, Martinez always thinks about how songs will play in a live setting in hopes of eliciting a positive audience response and participation. “Energy and tone in a concert setting is a huge motivator in the cadences and lyrics that I write,” Martinez says. “For example, ‘Better Start Digging’ was written almost exclusively for the live element. The chorus is meant to be shouted by an audience.”
Undead Melody covers an array of messages and themes, with each track grappling with its own unique concept or experience, making them each individually distinct. However, looking at the album as a whole, Martinez says that there is an overarching theme of death and rebirth. “It’s very much a reflection of the feelings we felt during the writing process and the moment we finished writing,” Martinez says.
In the early stages of creating Undead Melody, Dark Divine was hit with a wave of uncertainty, Martinez says. Before setting out to write the album, the band had split with one of their instrumental writers, leaving them with the challenge of trying to find their footing again. “This album was our first attempt at writing from the ground up with no real plan yet,” Martinez says. “There were definitely some moments where we were struggling to find a direction to take this next chapter in.”
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