Intense, emotional, and hypnotic, ‘Hide & Seek’ marks the return of Leeds-based post-hardcore outfit Kill The Silence, following a long yet busy two-year hiatus. Despite their absence from the public realm, the group has been hard at work behind the scenes, working on new material and refining their explosive, intricate sound in a positive direction. ‘Hide & Seek’ is the perfect evidence of that, an all-out, fierce anthem steeped in cinematic influence and rich lyrical storytelling.
The listening experience is rather dualistic, with Kill The Silence masterfully balancing heavy guitar distortions with clear and intelligible vocals. The result is a piece that will connect with metal heads as well as casual audiences, all without sacrificing the band’s unique and precise aural identity. Featuring Jason Walsh, Sam Rickerby, Daniel Ridding, Ian Souch, and John Wallins, Kill The Silence now gears up for a triumphal 2026. Judging by their latest single, there’s a lot of potential here.
Intrigued by the project, we caught up with Kill The Silence to learn more about their artistry and future goals… interview below!
Hey guys, welcome back! It’s been over two years since your previous release, ‘Lost at Sea’. Now that you have returned with ‘Hide & Seek’, I’d love to know what you have been up to during your hiatus. Were you focusing on writing and recording new material?
Thank you, it’s good to be back! You’ve pretty much nailed it. Our personal lives had gotten pretty hectic in the years leading up to ‘Lost At Sea’, and we were all starting to feel the weight of it. Changing jobs, moving to different cities, not to mention the endless impacts of the pandemic… it was getting hard to manage the band around our new circumstances, and we could all feel something wasn’t working.
In the run-up to releasing ‘Lost At Sea’, we decided to take some time away to regroup after that single dropped, give ourselves a hard reset and go from a clean slate. So yeah, the past couple of years have been mostly writing, recording, rehearsing, and generally restructuring how KTS works so we could put forward the best version of ourselves when the time was right.
Kill The Silence has been around for a while now; what motivates you to keep going? Do you still recognise the music industry around you?
We’re honestly in it for the love of the game. We love writing, we love performing, and we love the sense of community around live music. We all got into music at an early age, and gigs are a hard habit to kick, whether you’re on or off the stage. Songwriting is certainly gratifying in its own regard, but it’s so much more rewarding when you get to share it with people. That feeling definitely kept us going during our hiatus.
As for the industry, it’s ever-changing, but there was undeniably a seismic shift when Covid hit. The fallout from that was a big part of our decision to take a break. Our last major release was back in 2018 with ‘Bloodlines’, and when lockdown hit, we lost nearly all of the momentum we’d built since that EP came out. With so many small venues and independent promotions forced to call it a day, we lost a lot of contacts in the industry. The landscape is certainly different compared to when we started, but we don’t intend to shy away from that. We just hope people like what they hear and that we get to keep doing what we’re doing.
On the same theme, what are some of the big obstacles you are facing today, compared to, let’s say, 2013-15? As a reminder for the reader, you all met back in 2012 at Leeds College of Music.
In a word: content. Playing to the algorithm is one of those challenges that unites everyone across the industry. There’s so much great music in the UK fighting for people’s time and attention, so we knew we’d have to step up our social media game if we wanted to break through the noise. Jay (vocals) and Dan (rhythm guitar) have put in a lot of work to get our socials up to today’s standards. It’s definitely not without its challenges, but these days it’s all about keeping up with the times and hoping we continue to reach new fans to share our music with.
Diving deeper into your latest effort, ‘Hide & Seek’: I am pleased to report that the post-hardcore punch you are known for has not subsided yet! Intense and forceful, the track tells us that Kill The Silence is more alive than ever. What does the single mean to you?
It’s a fresh start. We definitely think ‘Hide & Seek’ showcases how much we’ve grown as musicians, but it’s also a vindication of our decision to take our time to write at our own pace. We’ve always been very critical of ourselves and held our writing to a high standard – and this was certainly no different – but taking the time to just write, not worrying about release schedules or anything like that, it really lets us put our process under the microscope and forgo any sense of obligation to compromise our standards. We really wanted to push ourselves, technically and creatively, in order to one-up our previous work. We’re incredibly proud of our back catalogue, but for us, Hide & Seek is easily one of the songs we’re the most proud of.
From a creative standpoint, how do you guys operate? Do you all write together, or is there anyone taking the lead on writing and producing?
These days, it’s a lot harder to get everyone together and jam new ideas as we did back in university, but it’s still no less of a collaborative process. We’ve certainly settled into our process over the years and figured out how to play to our strengths, bring out the best in each other. It’s sort of unavoidable when you’ve been in a band together for this long. Sam (lead guitarist) and Ian (bassist) tend to take the lead on writing and producing the broad strokes of each song, while Jay focuses on the vocals and John on the drums, but everyone contributes throughout the process.
A big part of our songwriting process these days is to never dismiss any ideas outright; always try something out first, no matter how outlandish it seems or how sceptical we might initially feel about it. If it doesn’t work in one song, it might work somewhere else. We really learned to stop boxing ourselves in and just let the song lead us where it naturally wanted to go. We all have fairly distinct and varied influences as musicians, so getting to pull from so many different places and blend them is incredibly rewarding.
Is there a contemporary group or artist that particularly inspires you? Or are you still going with the classics? Manchester and Leeds, in particular, have been hotbeds for cool new bands for some time now…
As we’ve said before, there’s quite an eclectic mix of influences across the band, contemporary and classic. Dave Matthews, Queen, Frank Turner, Twin Atlantic, we could honestly be here all day listing the places we pull from. We’re all eagerly waiting for Fightstar to put out another album, and we’re pretty psyched to see Marmosets back on the scene. They both have such a deft hand when it comes to balancing melody and high-energy riffs.
To your point about the Leeds and Manchester scenes, we couldn’t agree more. There are a lot of incredible bands out there smashing it right now: Dacara, Static Dress, Atrio, Caskets, to name a few. Those guys have such distinct flavours of rock and metal, there’s a lot for us to take inspiration from. We feel like there’s always been a wealth of talent in the north, and it’s nice to finally see it making waves on the national stage.
What’s next for Kill The Silence? Should we expect a massive 2026?
‘Hide & Seek’ was just a taste of what’s to come, and we can’t wait for everyone to hear what we’ve been cooking these past few years. You can expect to hear from us again very early in the new year. We’re back and ready to make noise.