Interviews About Albums: Level The Compound - One Of Us (2024)

In this new interview, we sat down with the American Progressive Metal/Crossover/Thrash Metal/Hardcore band Level The Compound to ask questions about their album, "One Of Us".

1. What can you say about this new EP/CD?

This is the final product of a slow and steady journey towards creating a unique sound capable of voicing the resistance. Against what? That is for the listener to decide. Religion, politics, society, love, drugs, beliefs, and facts - are these ideas that guide our life, our friend or enemy? Level the Compound asks this question.

2. What is the meaning of the EP/CD name?

It is a call to anyone who will listen and act! It is an open and welcoming hand in the midst of wartime. In this war, you are One of Us.

3. Which one is the composer of the CD/EP?

While the lyrical content pointedly expresses the concept of the album, the main songwriting comes from a collective of musical ideas. Every member contributed equally. The album is composed in a circular fashion with the eponymous traçk sitting outside at the end as if to say "Level the Compound was here" on a corporate structure burned to ash.

4. If you had to pick one song, which one would you pick?

Each song has a different purpose in the villain's origin story, but it is the title track “One of Us” that is a timeless call for revolution- whether that is in our worlds or in our very own hearts. Its goal is to help the listener realize that our world needs change, no matter what the cost.

5. Is there a special message in this EP/CD? If there is what is it?

The message of this album is that we as people are not above immorality, criminality, and all manner of deviance in our society. That justice requires blood. It seeks to shine a light against the rich's arrogance and the poor's complacency. It's also a call to the listener that they are now one of us, a member - in the common fight - of Level the Compound

6. Are there some lyrics that you'd love to share?

In the song You Should Pray, the protagonist pines, "People, things and beings who fear me, like I fear animals, to trap and control in the names of Gods and ideas, it would be inconveniently transcendent to imagine Me."

7. Which inspirations have been important for this album? Like musically or friends, family, someone you'd love to thank especially?

Musically, members of the band have listened to everything from Metallica (80s), Tool, The Sword, Queens of the Stone Age, Every Time I Die, Between The Buried And Me, Animals as Leaders, Machine Head, Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down, Tori Amos, James Brown, Green Day, Pantera and many more we couldn't possibly name. We loved that sweet spot before the algorithms began to homogenize us.

8. Something to add?

This album was a long while in the making. Original members Andrew, Wes, Ryland, and Evan created the former outfit "Spreadloves" in 2019. From our first jam session to adding Cal Bauer (of Skull Servant) on guitar, across countless shows, to recording with Jamie, and welcoming new bassist Richie we came into our identity as Level The Compound!

We are thankful, especially to those in the room to look us in the face, see us extend our war-torn hand, and know that it is real. You are One of Us!