Highland Kites – “This War Inside” (audio) (premiere)

In Highland Kites’ new single “This War Inside”, vocalist Marissa Lamar certainly sounds as though she’s battling all manner of demons trying to assert their dominance from the inside. Her voice is vulnerable yet increasingly determined as the music swirls with a steadily building tension. With rapid-fire drums from Neil Briggs, the rhythm and percussion ratchet up momentum to give weight to Lamar’s confessional lyrics.

“‘This War Inside’ sort of represents my tendency to run towards the light in dark situations,” Lamar said. “Knowing that I am the only one responsible for trapping myself in unhappy moments, I have to make the conscious choice to turn towards positivity.”

The Los Angeles-based folk-rock duo released their debut full-length, All We Left Behind, in July 2015. On its heels, they’re dropping followup EP Let Me Run on July 22. The EP features “This War Inside”, produced by Raymond Richards, who also contributes guitar and bass to the tune.

A year after the release of their debut full-length All We Left Behind, Highland Kites is dropping their followup EP, Let Me Run, on July 22.

“I wrote ‘This War Inside’ on the keys and never actually intended to bring it to Neil to add drums parts (I had intended to just scratch it originally), since it’s a bit dancier than our usual music and I honestly couldn’t quite make up my mind about it,” Lamar said. “After rehearsal one day I decided to play it for him and he ended up running with this repetitive drum beat and some ‘80s craziness on his drum pad. We kept working on it, played it live a few times, fell in love with the song and decided we were going to record it along with the rest of the EP. When we brought this to our producer Raymond there was no guitar part written. I talked to him about it and said that I wanted the guitar to sound like the ray of light I’m running towards. He somehow understood my crazy talk (like he always does) and came up with the prefect parts that weave through the song.”

TRACK LIST

1. Plastic Towns

2. Freckles

3. This War Inside

4. Humiliated

5. Let Me Run