Thornhill’s Jacob and Ethan guide us through the making of their new album ‘Bodies’, set for release on April 04 via UNFD.

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The only true certainty we have is that time doesn’t stop for any of us. Life never stops moving, the Earth never stops spinning and the moments we will experience never stop coming into view. So, it’s up to you how you handle that. You can keep looking over your shoulder, contemplating what has just been and comparing it to what is ahead of you. Or you can leave what has happened where it was and focus on the here and now, using the energy at your disposal this very minute rather than the leftovers from before.

For Thornhill, their decade-long adventure has revolved around what feels right today is the right path to take. It has allowed their discography to feel like one of the most varied, volatile and vivacious collections of work the current metalcore community has at its disposal. Yet to feel genuinely confident in that way of working has taken time and tenacity, to say the least, because the more they have grown in stature, the more eyes, ears and voices have been pointed their way. But in staying true to where they are and not where they have been, they have landed on the unbridled energy that surrounds their third full-length ‘Bodies’, a perfect embodiment of what it means to listen to your soul above everything else.

“People talk about albums being a snapshot at the time of your life, and that’s definitely how we treated this,” guitarist Ethan McCann explains. “Not every little thing is perfect because, well, we aren’t fucking perfect either right now. That’s the way it is, and that’s how we made it. We were just doing things whilst they felt hot. Not overthinking. We didn’t backtrack and instead thought, ‘This is sick’ and moved with it. That has felt even more exciting to look back on. It’s a much more authentic emotion.”

That authenticity can be felt pulsing through every ebb and flow of the record. Breathless, belligerent and beautifully human, it is a collection of songs that moves in whatever way it sees fit, choosing to push the big red button to see what actually happens rather than hover over simply considering every outcome. A piece of art that reflects limitless, animalistic and unpredictable possibilities that our infrastructures are capable of, it is as much a musical milestone for the band as it is a complete change of approach to existing.

“I think we landed on ‘Bodies’ in the right way,” vocalist Jacob Charlton adds. “We were ready to make the sound that we didn’t know we wanted until we did it. The process was less a case of, “We’ve done this before, so we can’t do it again” and more, ‘Can we do things better than what we are thinking and hearing right now.”

To dive deeper into the steps taken to reach this point, Rock Sound sat down with Jacob and Ethan to learn more about harnessing the energy that life grants us.

THE SOUND

To try and pinpoint exactly who Thornhill are musically is a complex process, and that’s the way that the band like it. Every step of their journey has seen them flip the narrative on its head, showing more and more people that they are capable of more than it may seem on the surface. From 2019’s seminal ‘The Dark Pool’, which perfected the art of combining dreamy existentialism with razor-sharp riffs, to 2022’s vast ‘Heroine’, sitting somewhere between film-noir atmospherics and galaxy-sized arena rock, there is no one way to encapsulate the band’s sound. And ‘Bodies’ continues that trend, drifting between tender and tenacious with the flick of the wrist, never content with being in one place for too long. For Jacob and Ethan, that comes from following a feeling found deep inside, brought on by the chemicals flowing through our bloodstream.

“We have this ongoing thing of following the endorphins,” Ethan smiles. “It doesn’t matter what it is, just do whatever makes you feel happy. Our only conscious thought was that we wanted a bit of energy and pace back. “Heroine’ was written in lockdown when we were all separated. It was very vibey because it came from smoking and writing in our bedrooms because we had nothing else to do. And when we then took that to the stage, it really felt that way, much slower and moodier. We went in knowing that we needed to be able to move to these songs, and we wanted to see people move to them, too.”

Cutting their teeth as part of the hectic Melbourne metalcore scene as teenagers who loved heavy music, that adoration for making a crowd go off to the chaos you’re conjuring is hard to shake. But rather than simply returning to the moves that worked back then, ‘Bodies’ embodies a different sort of heaviness. One that creeps up on you and boots you in the temple when you least expect it, like the brilliantly raw ‘Revolver’, and that boils over time before there is nothing that pressure can do but escape, like during the relentless ‘Obsession’. And coming from where they were on ‘Heroine’, where everything was meticulously placed and choreographed, getting to play with that sort of unpredictable freedom again felt like a sweet relief.

And so much of that feeling continuing to linger comes from one particular track. Since its original release in November of last year, the grooving monolith that is ‘nerv’ has become a catalyst for the band in terms of their connection to these songs on a deeper level, both on record and in the live arena. And though there are plenty of moments on ‘Bodies’ that feel glacial in comparison to the carnage, like with the soft patter of ‘under the knife’ and the spine-tingling dreaminess of ‘Only Ever You’, it is seeing the connection in real time that has allowed the band to know that working on vibes has paid off.

“’nerv’ really changed things,” Jacob explains. “We all felt the buzz of that song [when writing it], but the room did something different when we played it. We have never had a singalong, which isn’t just a big chorus, like that. There’s a different energy, and it has definitely sparked the hype of playing these songs for us now. Notoriously, I would not like anything that we made simply because we made it. Now I have to give myself and our band some lenience in terms of being proud of something.”

THE COLLABORATORS

Thornhill has always been a deeply personal creation for its members, so welcoming others into the process of bringing it to life has always been something that takes considerable consideration. And up till ‘Bodies’, every fingerprint provided via the production process was done in house. For this round, the band invited long-time friend Sam Bassal into the fold. Known predominantly for his work with genre-bending brutes Ocean Grove, his knack for turning instincts into atmospheres was welcome when crafting the record’s sporadic nature. More than anything, it was a case of keeping the vibes at an all-time high.

“He is a really amazing hype man,” Ethan comments. “He is a dear friend and very talented at what he does, but even just having another voice in the room to boost the energy was vital. I can get in my own head in the songwriting process when it comes to decision-making, and it can slow the whole thing down. Going into this record with the intention of having more energy really is one of his strong points.

“Having someone on that side of the process really helped to draw so much more out,” Jacob adds. “Someone is always going to hear something different to you. If that is in your same taste, it’s good to have someone like that around. We are so hands-on, though. Maybe too hands-on. So, shaking it up was important.”

Being aware of how important it is to shake things up is another vital aspect of who Thornhill are in 2025 as well. It is all too easy to go deeper into your own self-made shell, feeling like any outside input taints what made things so magic in the first place. But being open to change is all a part of growing up, of realising that we are better when we cross streams and let others bat for us as hard as we do. As long as the core intention is the same as it has always been, then the essence will never fade. It will only get more potent.

“This is our music, no matter what,” Jacob adds. “If we like it, it’s going to happen, and if we don’t like it, it’s not going to happen. So, it can’t hurt to have another opinion in the room, whether we like it or don’t like it. To offer us different directions to take, no matter if we take them or not, is really special.”

THE LYRICS

As we are all aware, music is subjective. It’s a deeply personal experience where you derive whatever you need at the exact moment from what you are letting wash over you. And off the back of ‘Heroine’, a record with a carefully constructed narrative, theme and mood, Jacob wanted to take the opportunity that ‘Bodies’ presented as a moment to return to centre. Being so influenced by energy and how it changes, he approached the lyrical aspects in the same way, not letting anything but what he felt coursing through him in the moment take hold. The result is a collection of songs that feel ambiguous in nature. Though many may want to know his exact reasoning for writing the words that make up this record, the truth is that he isn’t totally sure what it all means. But that’s life, isn’t it? If we had all the answers, we wouldn’t have anything to strive for.

“I wouldn’t want my experience or vision of these song’s lyrical meanings to disrupt what someone else’s is,” he admits. “When putting a record out into the world, it isn’t yours anymore and I don’t think it should be. If I’ve felt something within a song that I loved and someone told me a different meaning of it, I would hear it differently, and I don’t know if I would like that.

“But with this record being about so much energy and movement, we put a lot of effort into that aspect of it, and because of that, I don’t really know what any of it means. I actually put these lyrics into Chat GPT, and it basically said I was nuts, so make of that what you will. I don’t even know what’s going on.”

As funny as that admission is, there is something quite pertinent in these experiences and ideals being thrown together being perceived as madness. For the four members of Thornhill, the band has been a central point of their lives throughout their most developmental years. They have gone from boys to men within the shadow of this band, found themselves inside and out of it and gone through physical, mental and personal change aplenty. To attempt to understand all those things within your own journey and the journey your three best friends have been on is one hell of an undertaking and enough to drive you mad. So, leaving it up in the air, agreeing that things are just the way they are and being inspired by that is sometimes the most powerful thing you can do.

But amazingly, as they have grown and met more bands, the lads have discovered that their relationship is quite a rarity. Trying to make sense of all of this as a unit is something that they certainly shouldn’t take for granted.

“With every band that we met, we expected them to be the same as us, all best mates doing this because we couldn’t imagine doing it any other way,” Ethan laughs. “Then we found out that wasn’t the norm, and we were the weird ones in wanting to do everything together and spend all our time together on tour. But we have actually become even closer off the back of that. We’ve gone through some tough times as a band and tough times in our lives, and we are the tightest we have been as a unit because of it. That then really comes out in the music.”

“You see your best friends going through life, finding their partners and seeing how difficult it is to be an adult alongside what we are doing, let alone normal life, and you learn from it,” Jacob nods. “A record is a snapshot of your life, but this is a snapshot of all four of us.”

THE TITLE AND ARTWORK

The ambiguity of the lyrical turns of ‘Bodies’ is also reflected within the word that umbrellas it and the artwork accompanying it. Returning to that idea of energy and movement, the body is a powerful tool for both. Be that something as individual as the beating of your heart in your chest or as communal as the clashing of limbs in the mosh pit or the coming together of ideologies and passions on the dancefloor of the club, there are so many factors that the band realised they were pulling from within trying to define these songs. But rather than trying to overcomplicate, something that we so often do in pursuit of understanding, they kept it simple. Relatable. Human.

“We had so many ideas and options and ‘Bodies’ was the one that made us go, ‘Oh’ even though it was the simplest,” Jacob reveals. The same can be said with the artwork. We went deeper and deeper and just ended up coming back. It was that first gut feeling and trusting it that eventually cemented them both. It encapsulates the whole thing.”

The artwork and the creative direction of the record were conceptualised and delivered by Connor Dewhurst, an artist who has provided assets for everyone from The 1975 and Bring Me The Horizon to Ariana Grande and The Rolling Stones. Though what he delivered for this particular project is as unsettling as it is indescribable. A mix of muted greys and cool blues surrounding a close-up picture of anything from a view of cells under a microscope to an insect’s anatomy is the culmination of a mood more than anything. Allowing it to be messy and unrecognisable further embedded the idea of imperfection being sexy that so much of the band’s creative process was spearheaded by. And whether it be the frenzied direction that director Jon Pisani took with the music videos or the moody images taken by photographer Georgia Moloney, it’s a sentiment that can be felt in every facet of the era.

“The approach we took with this album was putting a bit more weight on the other creatives involved. Every detail didn’t have to be perfect because nobody else would see it the same way we do. Allowing things to flow and hearing other people’s takes and visions was exciting and much more enjoyable.”

THE FUTURE

What ‘Bodies’ has provided for Thornhill is a whole new way of seeing the crafting of art. The sort of lessons that stick and rub off on everything else that follows it. The aspects of being in a band that cannot be bought but only uncovered by taking the plunge. After years of feeling like they needed to be in control of every minute detail of their output, they are heading into the future more free-flowing and fulfilled than ever before. The only certainty in this life is that time won’t stop, so they are using that to their advantage. Because at the end of all things, what they create will outlive all of us. Music is infinite, even if we are not.

“The thing that is going to stand the test of time with our band is the music,” Ethan concludes. That’s why we started Thornhill. It wasn’t to create the perfect album cover, music video, or image. If we do what we do with the music, that is what will always be doing the talking. Everything else is a bow on top.”