THE SPECTRE BENEATH – interview

Introduce your band, and describe your latest release:
We began as a spark of an idea in 2018. Pete Worrall, guitarist for thrashers, Plague and the Decay, and his long-time collaborator, Katy Lennon, got together and wrote several more melodic songs. Pete dragged across the drummer from Plague and the Decay and then we found L.L from an online demo. Metal wasn’t her first genre, so we were amazed she said yes. She had the perfect voice for Pete and Katy’s vision.
Our latest release, The Devil’s Whisper, is our 4th album and released on 17th July. It’s another slab of our own brand of heavy, thrashy, ultra melodic, thematic metal. It also has its narrative roots into our debut album so, in, many ways, it feels like a continuation of our earlier albums.

What’s the hardest part about being a band in this day and age?
Getting the music out there and heard. Trying to get people to listen to your tunes seems an impossible task sometimes. Even with a couple of P.R companies pushing you, it’s very difficult. There are so many creative people all vying for the same thing, mind you, it was just as difficult before the invention of the internet. Back then, you had to wave demo tapes in front of people’s faces. In a sense it’s easier with the internet but there does seem a barrier you have to break through to find your audience.

When did you realise that your project had the potential to be much more than just a fun idea?
It was around the fourth song we’d written, we think it was the song, ‘As The Crows Peck At Your Bones’. It was a light bulb moment because it was a big, bold, catchy track, and when we put it up against the three tracks we already had, ‘There Are Cameras in the Dolls’, ‘Teach Yourself Guitar’ and ‘The Downfall of Judith King’, we realised we had something. It was at that point we decided to take it a bit more seriously and create a full album.

Tell us about your latest release, why should we check it out?
The Album feels like a reset in many ways as our original singer returned after recovering from health issues. As an early review said, “The Spectre Beneath returns in glory and splendour, and it’s a worthy continuation of what they played in 2019 and 2020.” And we feel the same. There are some big songs on this album, great vocals, super shredding and big drums, all wrapped in heavy power/prog goodness.

How does a song typically come together for you?
It’s a methodical approach. We don’t write ‘off the cuff’ or jam anything. Pete writes the music and he used to use this method in his previous bands and it didn’t really work for him so he locks himself away and comes back with a nucleus of a track which we then work on. Pete and Katy then spend a lot of time on the vocal melodies and harmonies with L.L adding extra parts and changing lines afterwards. Lyrics are usually the last thing to be written otherwise we end up shoehorning a melody around the lyrics. We’d rather have the lyrics fit the rhythm of the melody.

How would you describe your sound to an unfamiliar reader?
The music is very riff driven. Pete’s a huge thrash fan so they can be quite heavy and fast at times but, as a juxtaposition, the vocals are very melodic as Katy is a very strong melody writer. We’re not very good at writing about the real world so, thematically, our songs are either based on our favourite movies, such as Sister Hyde, or our own flash fiction. In other words, mix some Megadeth riffing with Savatage melodies and Iron Maiden thematics with Kobra Paige over the top and you won’t be far off the mark.

What do you want listeners to take away from listening to your band?
Enjoyment mainly. We hope they are entertained by our music and hope its metal enough and has enough energy for them to get the listener pumped. Our songs are based around short stories and flash fiction so we hope the listener comes for the riffs and stays for the thematics.

Where would you really like to tour that you haven’t done so yet, and why?
Live shows have not entered the equation yet because we were concentrating on getting the album completed. With Pete supplying bass duties and all guitars on the album, save for a handful of guest solos, we’d need some extra troops. However, we’d love to bring The Spectre Beneath to Japan. We’ve never been. The country looks incredible and we’d just love to engage with the metal community over there.

How would you say that the sound of your band has progressed over the years?
We don’t think it’s progressed too much. Pete writes most of the music and is very conscious about changing it too much mainly because he loves writing that style. Most people mellow as they progress but Pete seems to be creating heavier and heavier riffs. As a band though, we had a singer change for the last album but our original singer has returned so it feels like we’ve reset to our original form so to speak.

How excited are you for 2026, and what can fans expect from you?
Our new album has been too long in the making so we’re really excited to get it out there, also, we’re hoping it’ll give us the momentum to get recording straight away. Due to circumstances, we’re in different parts of the world at the moment. Thanks to the internet, we’re passing ideas back and forth and we already have a blueprint for another album, so, until those circumstances change, that’s what we’ll be focusing on in the short term and we already have some cool ideas.