Band – Niboowin
Album – giving in
Country of Origin – International
Genre – Screamo
Release Date – May 9, 2024
Label – Zegema Beach Records
Author – Hayduke X
Review
You see, I’ve been there since the beginning. By happenstance, I was at the first show Niboowin played (it was also the Dakhma “Suna Kulto” release show locally), as well as one of the last shows Old Soul played (when they opened for Cloud Rat one time). In each case, I was properly blown away, though I was really unfamiliar with each going in. If you are unaware of why I mention Old Soul, when that band ended, some of the members got together to form Niboowin. Back in 2018, I also reviewed the band’s debut LP “breathing,” which you can read here. I then lost track of them for awhile unfortunately (partly because they were somewhat inactive due to pandemics and other circumstances discussed in the interview below), but I’m beyond stoked to once again be able to write about what I consider to be one of Michigan’s (plus Sweden) best-kept secrets. Hopefully, they won’t fall in that category for long, by exploding into rock and roll arena glory and fame.
Niboowin play an incredibly emotion style of screamo. The genre is known to be emotional anyway, but the trio (currently) have really brought it to a new level right from the jump. I feel these songs as much as listening to them. They speak to me in ways I don’t even really understand, to be honest. I just walk away from listening each time feeling like I’ve grown or changed in some vaguely satisfying way, like I’ve achieved a catharsis I didn’t even really know I needed.
The sound is somewhat jangly, which I believe is primarily caused by guitar tone choices (very positive guitar tone choices. Nick is responsible for those. Though he recently left the band to fulfill other life commitments, Jimmy recorded the rock solid, rumbling bass for the album. Dillion is responsible for the creative and driving drumming. New to the band since the first album is Dani, from Sweden, on vocals. Their yells of anguish embedded in the sounds created by the other three is the combination which proves to be so visceral.
My only question is why aren’t you already listening. Check it out below, then keep going for my interview with the band.
Interview
Hayduke X: First of all, congratulations on the upcoming release of “giving in.” I’ve had an early listen and find it to be passionate and powerful. With its pending release just a couple of months away, how are you feeling about it?
Dillion: I think it’s safe to say we’re all stoked that it’s finally coming out. We had to record this album two separate times, and some songs even 3 times. Unfortunately, we kept running into problems along the way. (Hard drives failing and losing everything we had lol) But yeah super happy to have a new album finally especially with Dani being with us.
Nick: I think that we’re all very relieved (lol) and mainly excited for the upcoming release. It’s been a long process in the making, as Dillion mentioned we’ve had some setbacks. But with that being said, we can now move forward with it and start planning new shows/tours and continue writing more material.
Dani: As mentioned, it’s a huge relief to finally release this album. The first time we recorded it was in 2019, so it’s been a long time coming. Super excited for people to hear it! And looking forward to continuing to regain some momentum and carry on with recording the next album and getting back on touring.
HX: Before we go too much further, can I have each of you introduce yourself and your role in the band?
Dillion: I’m Dillion, 25, born & living in Mount Pleasant, MI. I’ve been playing drums in Niboowin since 2016.
Nick: Names Nick, from the reservation of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and I play guitar and do back vocals for Niboowin.
hey rick! thanks for doing this with us! sorry for my delay.
Dani: My name’s Dani and I have been doing vocals, since late 2018. I’m born and raised around Gothenburg, and currently living up north in Umeå, Sweden.
HX: Take me back, if you can, to the origins of the band. How did this project start and how has it evolved?
Nick: Dillion and I met in high school, we started jamming here and there and then quickly realized that our styles of playing were compatible with each other. We started making songs and played a few shows every so often. I eventually joined Old Soul on their last album and European tour, which I knew was the end, going into it. So when that was over with, Dillion and I asked the other guitarists (Jimmy & Mikey) if they wanted to start something new with us. We made an album’s worth of material and decided to record it. Overtime, we lost Mikey and were a three piece for two tours. We eventually gained Dani as the new vocalist as I wanted to mainly focus on playing guitar. After a few more tours and the making of “giving in,” Jimmy respectfully parted ways with us. Now we have Lowell from Frail Body and Crowning playing bass for Niboowin. And with the years of Dillion and I playing together we’ve both evolved with our ideas for music writing.
P.S. Essentially it started with Dillion and I smoking a blunt at a friend’s house who had a shitty children’s first act drum set and he RIPPED it apart lol.
Dillion: Yeah I remember that as “the” moment that everything kind of started for us haha! After that we knew we had to start hanging & jamming together.
Dani: I got to know mainly Jimmy through playing together at the final Old Soul show at Fluff Fest in Czech Republic, 2016. My old band played the same stage and day and we connected through that as well as mutual friends. So when Niboowin started and came over to Europe for the first time (summer of 2018), I tagged along for a few weeks of the tour and ended up doing guest vocals for a few songs at every show. After that I guess the band started thinking about adding a full time vocalist to allow Nick to focus on guitar. We discussed it and decided to do it with me, even if it can be a bit of a logistical puzzle to be on different continents. So in 2019 we did a few US runs and a massive euro tour, as well as recording ‘giving in’ for the first time.
Being so far apart was, as you can imagine, a bummer during the pandemic, and the first time we saw each other since 2019 was just a few months ago.
The single, “Astral Summit” was the first recording we released with me on vocals, and that was late 2023. So, until then only the people who’ve seen us live have heard the new songs and how we sound with the new lineup.
HX: Tell me about the writing process with ‘giving in.’ It sounds like there were a lot of bumps on the road.
Dani: The album was mostly written when I joined. I wrote all of the lyrics in one sitting of kind of flow-of-consciousness writing. Then in February 2019, we did the first tour with me officially in the band, and we went from that tour straight into the studio (Lake Bottom Recording House in Toledo, OH).
So that was the first time we recorded the album. Jimmy was at the time playing on a Frankenstein’s monster-guitar which I think he modded himself (right?). So it had a bass guitar string and a single string bass pickup, and two outputs, one to plug in a guitar amp and one into a bass amp. It sounded sick live but it was harder to get it sounding well in a recording, I guess. That was the first hurdle we needed to get over. So that bass was re-recorded later on. And then our recording person got a sudden (but temporary) loss of hearing, I think while mixing, or was it during the first recording session? Anyway, I think he lost like 80% of his hearing, which affected the mix/recording.
Nick: For the most part, the writing didn’t take very long at all. Dillion and I would come up with a few riff ideas and just build on them until we thought it sounded and felt right. What took awhile was us re-recording it several times while being in the midst of covid, waiting for studio opening all along with Dani mentioned
Dani: Then things got severely delayed due to the pandemic and real life stuff, and somewhere in that mix there was a hard drive crash and all of the recordings were lost. Eventually y’all got together and re-recorded everything (and did the bass parts on a regular bass), and I recorded the vocals myself on my end as traveling was not really doable.
I think that was about it. During this time Jimmy left the band and we’ve slowly but surely been rebuilding momentum, and Nick and Dillion have continued writing new stuff for which we have a recording session coming up!
Nick: And I think in the middle of this, shit literally hit the fan
Dillion: If I remember right, I’m pretty sure a lot of the songs for this album came together pretty smoothly. There might have been a couple songs that we had to take a break from working on and eventually get back to later, but other than that I think the process of the songs being created went really well. It was just everything afterwards that things started getting stressful. There was that big, almost four year gap that we didn’t play any shows, so it might have seemed like we were dead at that point, but really we never stopped working on this shit through that entire time. And now finally we have this album coming out after all of that stuff that Nick & Dani mentioned. I think we’re all really happy it ended up working out.
HX: That’s an absolutely wild story of how this was recorded! The results, I think, are worth it though. This next one may be more for Dani specifically. What is the album about lyrically and thematically?
Dani: The album is about self-isolation and starvation (physical, emotional and spiritual) due to trauma and overwhelm with existence. About breaking patterns, attempting to find one’s way to connect with peers, with ourselves and with the earth – and the inner turmoil such a foundation shift may bring.
It’s about loneliness in a way but it’s told from the perspective of the many who walk similar paths, alone but together.
and thanks, I also feel like the end result was worth it ♡
HX: Did you find the experience cathartic?
Dani: I don’t know if I’d call it cathartic necessarily. but it was interesting and beneficial to look back and speak to and for my former self in different phases of life. I know I haven’t been alone even during the times I’ve felt and still feel that way. My hope is that others in similar positions can find some solace or acceptance in the words. Performing these songs however is definitely always cathartic to me.
HX: Can each of you tell me your favorite track on the new album and why you chose that one?
Dillion: It’s hard to confidently pick a favorite one, but right now I’m thinking of the second song, Ascending. I believe it’s a bit longer than some of the other ones & I usually prefer shorter songs, but this one has always been a lot of fun to play. It’s got slower parts, blasty parts, & it has a build up for a little while near the end that leads to a super aggressive sounding ending.
Distance & Bad Words are a couple songs that I should mention too. We’ve been playing those two live for like five years now. They were also two of the songs that came together super early on. Good memories with those ones.
Dani: I can’t say for sure but probably Albedo, Breathe On. or Until It Doesn’t Matter, or Bad Words. But ask me any other day and I might pick a different set of three haha
I think of the album as a whole and not as separate songs I guess ~ and I chose these this time cause they all carry some form of hope and acceptance. And also due to enjoying playing them. They are all pretty intense and tiring to sing, and I like that.
Nick: For me I really like Bask, Live and Never Tire. Bask, Live because I have the most fun playing it and for Never Tire I just really like how it turned out with the recording. I always love a slow build up
HX: I was at your first ever show, which was a partially different lineup, and haven’t caught up to you since. What’s a live Niboowin show like these days?
Dani: Come to a show and find out! I’d say this is a question better directed to a person in the audience ~
HX: Fair enough. Lol. I promise I’ll be at the next Grand Rapids show. (EDITOR’S NOTE: though I could still technically make this promise true, I sadly had to miss them when they played Muskegon, as I was out of the country)
HX: Tell me about the album art. Who created it? How does it connect to the music?
Dani: I made the artwork. I see it as a visual representation of the emotion in the songs. The colors on the cover are connected to the colors of the Ojibwe/Anishnebeg medicine wheel. Nick, do you wanna add something about that?
It’s originally a painting
Nick: The album work that Dani did was perfect for the material that we’ve made. At first it was just yellow, black and white. I looked at it and asked Dani to put a little red into it because the colors were so close to being the colors of the Ojibwe medicine wheel. I’m very happy with how it turned out.
HX: Who or what (musically or otherwise), would you say are your main influences for Niboowin, especially this album?
Dillion: That’s a tough one. I listen to a lot of different stuff but I can’t really say if any of it really influences me with Niboowin. I feel like at practice I don’t have anything else in mind other than what we’re working on at the moment. I grew up listening to a lot of pop punk stuff & still do, but I don’t think that has much of an impact on Niboowin lol.
Although I do gotta give my parents a shoutout for taking a chance and getting me a drumset when I was like 9 years old. I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing this with Nick & Dani otherwise.
Dani: When it comes to influences, a band that often comes up for us would be Envy.
For me personally they’ve definitely been a big influence through the years, and I’d also put The Saddest Landscape, City of Caterpillar, Coma Regalia and Gilian Carter up there among a bunch of other related and unrelated stuff. I make different kinds of music alongside Niboowin, and I find inspiration in lots of different directions.
Nick: Well I grew up listening to heavy music. My father was a fan of all genres of music, especially things more on the heavier side. Anything from Sabbath, Slayer and even bands like Gorgoroth (lol). My older cousin Joey was also a big influence. He played in essentially Old Soul before it was Old Soul. I was already starting out on playing guitar…but when he started showing me new techniques/ideas for playing, bands that I’ve never heard of before, it really made me excel. For writing songs I usually don’t have any influence of bands necessarily. I just go off from if it’s fun to play and if it sounds interesting
HX: What else should we know about Niboowin?
Dani: We’re recording new material starting in a few weeks. More than another album, it seems. I’m on my way over there now to finish writing and start recording. Can’t wait to see this come together!
Dillion: Yeah, we just all got together earlier today and hung out for a bit and went over all this new stuff we have. Super excited to already be back recording the 3rd album before the 2nd one even comes out lol. I’m happy we’re all back together again. Thanks for talking with us!
Biography: Hayduke X has been writing for MoshPitNation since June of 2016. He is also a contributor to The Metal Wanderlust. Prior to joining the MoshPitNation team, Hayduke published reviews on his own blog Rage and Frustration. In addition, he has DJ’ed an online metal radio show of the same name as his blog, written for TOmetal.com, done interviews for Metal Rules, and collaborated with The Art of B Productions to create video interviews with a wide variety of bands.
