Arts / From lockdown to album launch as rock band unveil debut record
The Fiction have released their 13-track album Divination – a record which should enjoy a wide appeal
WHEN Shetland alternative rock band The Fiction started in 2020, it was in the depths of the lockdown – with song ideas bounced between its four members over the internet.
They had even released songs to the world without even playing them together in the same room.
But four years later, from a somewhat fractured start, the band – having racked up many gigs too – are now able to hold their own debut album on vinyl in their hands.
Their 13-track album Divination – unleashed today (Friday) – is a classy contemporary rock offering, accomplished in not just songwriting but production too, and it already stands out brightly in the list of Shetland’s original music releases.
It has come out on CD as well as vinyl, and online on streaming platforms too – but a record, a rare release for Shetland bands, feels like a physical keepsake for the ages.
“I took out the sleeve and put it in the record player, and then the needle went on and our own music started coming out of it. I was thinking ‘oh my god’,” vocalist and singer Keirynn Topp says as he reflects on playing a test pressing of the record.
Topp, who is joined in The Fiction by drummer Chris Coles, guitarist Joe Robertson and bassist Barrie Scobie, has every reason to be feeling chuffed as their album makes its way into the world.
Having performed more as a singer-songwriter in more recent years prior to The Fiction launching, Topp’s soulful vocals give the tracks a true melodic sheen and help to widen the band’s appeal.
With influences such as Royal Blood and Queens of the Stone Age in the mix too, the band are not afraid to get dirty either – with crunching guitar riffs just as welcome as the pop-leaning hooks.
Try Fool Circle for example, which juggles radio-friendly vocals and uplifting choruses before it disintegrates into a pulverising riff to finish, or Arkansas, which brings in plunging groove.
There are some more left-field moments too, such as opening track The King, which chucks in some brooding string effects, or the finale Forever More, which detours into a soothing, acoustic-led unwind with harmonies taking on an ethereal quality.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into putting an album together,” Topp reflects.
“I didn’t realise just how much it was going to be. We’ve probably learned a lot from the process, we could do it better and be more structured next time.”
With Coles taking on the task of putting it all together, the drummer admits he must have spent hundreds of hours fine-tuning the recordings.
He has also released instrumental music under his own name – so adding flourishes, like the string effects, all came naturally.
“I quite like making cinematic music anyway, so it was kind of fun to throw that on songs that could benefit from it,” Coles says.
Topp wrote a fair chunk of the music, but the other members chipped in with some of their own tunes too, making for a multi-coloured melting pot.
The lyrics are largely left to the listener to interpret. “I think almost all the songs on the album are very personal – we haven’t even really shared what they mean with each other,” he says.
The album was recorded across a number of locations, mainly at their own homes – even in the classy confines of a bedroom cupboard, and also within a car in parked up Weisdale.
“I recorded vocals for one of the songs in Barrie’s kid’s bedroom cupboard, because I didn’t want to scream in my house – it’s like social housing, I didn’t want to scream in the house and get complaints,” Topp smiles.
“Actually I did it in my Fiesta as well – I got some screams out in Weisdale.”
On the horizon for The Fiction is a gig at the Clickimin for the inaugural Rising North event next weekend, as well as a trip to Orkney for the islands’ own rock festival in early September.
They have already toured down south, but with an album that has a reach well beyond Shetland’s shores, the aim is to hit the road again next year.
It’s all a far cry from when the band started life, back in 2020 – when the world looked a pretty different place with facemasks and social distancing.
Coles says as as result the band’s writing has in the past been “detached” – “we kind of got into the habit of bringing an idea to each other and just bouncing off that”, he adds.
“When we were writing songs it was during lockdown, and some of the songs we hadn’t actually played together,” Topp says. “We released them on Spotify but we actually hadn’t physically played them with each other.
“And now we understand how we work and how we can get the best out of each other.”
The album Divination can be bought on vinyl or CD here.
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