Some acts release an album then fizzle out; others release a steady stream of new stuff throughout their career. Some find themselves enduring necessary gaps between releases.
By Graeme Smith
Australia’s Highroad No. 28 fit in the latter category. Their new album, aptly named The Will To Endure, is due out December 2025, a mere fifteen years after the last.
“The Will To Endure, needed to be released in 2025,” says frontman Andrew JC. “I’d previously had tentative release dates in 2011 and 2016, and there had already been too many delays. Given geographical distance and personal circumstances, it simply wasn’t feasible to record with the full band within that timeframe. So, I made the decision to handle everything myself in order to finally bring the album to completion.”
Fifteen years is quite the break, and I know from personal experience how much can change in one’s life in that time. I wanted to know how Andrew’s sound had evolved in the gap between albums.
“I think the music is more melodic and more mature,” he says. “That said, I’ve always written in a fairly consistent way, and there are common threads running through the material from 1999 right through to now. The core identity is still there.”
The album is heralded by single Thistroubledsoul which also acts as our introduction to the act. It’s a song that hits hard right from the off with a whining guitar note and some punchy percussion.
Pleading vocals come in, delivering reflective and stirring lyrics. They are their most poignant in the chorus which lingers. The track’s story tackles themes of inner conflict, endurance, and emotional survival, and I wanted to know what prompted Andrew to write about them.
“These themes are universal, and they manifest in countless ways,” he says. “I wasn’t interested in writing a confession or a literal narrative, but in capturing a particular emotional atmosphere. I wanted the song to feel like a mirror people could bring their own experiences to, rather than something overly specific.”
Whenever I get to interview an artist who has been in the game for awhile, I like to ask them to reflect on how things have changed over the decades.
“Highroad No. 28 began in Sydney, Australia when I was a teenager in 1998,” Andrew says. “I demoed five songs (for what became the Obscure Madness EP) and came up with the band name around the same time. I’m fairly sure those early demos involved recording guitar straight onto cassette tape, which says a lot about how different things were back then.”
He goes on to say: “I started out before home recording computers were common, when musicians generally had to play their instruments well to get results. Software definitely has its place, but I feel there’s now an over-reliance on it.
“Physical formats like CDs have largely disappeared, print magazines are rare, and everything exists almost entirely online. That shift doesn’t really appeal to me, and now AI has entered the picture which, for me, has no place in genuine creative expression.”
Whatever else the future holds, Andrew is promising live shows and touring for fans of Highroad No. 28. You can keep up to date with all they’re up to by following them on Facebook, Spotify, Soundcloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, Instagram, and Songkick.
Thistroubledsoul is out now, and you can give it a listen below.
Supported by Musosoup #SustainableCurator
