Despite it being their first release, Keaper’s debut EP sees the band burst out of the gates with an idiosyncratic but fully realised sound, as well as the composure and self-assurance to pull it off. Kicking off with ‘Red’, the band’s mesmerising sonic world seems to materialise around us as the track expands open, with layers of shimmering guitar over a fluctuating pulse. Despite being completely instrumental, the track is immediately compelling, and we’re lured into a haze for EP highlight ‘Come & Go’ to drift in with its dreamy melodies and slowburning atmospherics.

Next up, ‘Afterlife’ sees the band turn the heat up a little, with stabbing guitars and a stark and unsettling groove, while Ameya Ajay’s looming vocals sound more acerbic than ever. Finally, Duality finishes with ‘Wasted Light’, the EP’s latest single that rounds out the journey gloriously, encompassing all of Keaper’s strengths into a five minute tangle of radiant sound.

To help us dig a little deeper into the EP, the band have taken us through Duality one track at a time.

Red

This song started out as just guitar and bass, where you can hear the communication and natural shifting of focus between the two instruments. It came together really fast one night when we were jamming after just finishing ‘Come & Go’, and we realised it could transition really nicely into the start of ‘Come & Go’ - so now we feel like the songs aren’t complete on their own. It was one of those songs where after we’d finished writing it, we played it over and over again because it’s just such a fun one to play. We tend to associate songs with colours, probably because we’re usually trying to translate them into a visual format - and this one just really felt like the colour red when we were writing it.

Come & Go

‘Come & Go’ takes the form of an internal conversation; navigating through a period of nihilism and eventually coming to a place of acceptance and moving forward with or without a sense of purpose. We tried to leave the song on a more hopeful note, with the line “open your eyes” representing seeing things from a new perspective. This one took some inspiration from Smashing Pumpkins in terms of guitar sound and effects. To achieve the supreme dream, we sat the track on a bed of flanged reverb to give it a subtle shoegaze vibe, and stacked layers of vocals and guitars on top of one another.  

Afterlife

This song was written after being handed a “million dollar” note by a stranger that had a message on it about what they considered to be the one and only way to live. We then pondered on the concept of living life in anticipation of the afterlife, and questioned what a well-lived life looks like. The verses come from a place of confusion and frustration and translate musically as darker and harsher rhythmically, while the chorus is expressing the opposing mindset of clarity and freedom, translating musically as more soaring and melodic.

Wasted Light

This was the first song we wrote as Keaper. The first version of it was written as part of a songwriting class at uni in 2019, with guidance from Jon Toogood from Shihad in the pre-chorus. It’s a bit of a landmark song for us because it was an amalgamation of both of our influences at the time, and without us specifically communicating to each other how we wanted it to sound, we managed to make exactly the type of song we wanted to make. It was the type of music we had both been wanting to write for a while, so we knew the collaboration, and the project in general, was right. It was originally written as a form of release during a tough and stressful time, and now represents for us the beginning of a new and wonderful time of creative expression and friendship.