Where Do We Go from Here?

“The last record was a very personal thing,” Asking Alexandria vocalist Danny Worsnop tells Apple Music. “This one, not to sound in any way negative about it, but it's not.” On their eighth album, the UK metalcore stars ditch their trademark introspection—for the most part—in favour of delivering a crowd-pleaser. “We didn't want to experiment or explore anything new,” Worsnop says. “This wasn't about reinventing the wheel or pushing any boundaries. It's very much intended to be a synopsis of the last 15 years, and a collection of everything we've done all in one place. So all the various pockets of fans from all the various flavours of sound we've had can have one cohesive thing together before we step forwards into what's next.” Worsnop and guitarist Ben Bruce approached the album’s lyrics in the same spirit. “It was ‘What subjects have we touched on over the last 15 years that people seem to have resonated with?’” Worsnop says. “That became our list of topics. But I’m writing these songs for other people, not myself. People who complain on the internet could call it selling out, but we're just trying to create a product that people have been asking for.” Below, he comments on each track. “Bad Blood” “This one has the aggression and angst and all the screamy stuff from the first two records mixed with the pop and R&B elements from the last I don't know how many years. It’s definitely the balls-to-the-wall, big, loud, angry one. I don’t think ‘heavy’ is a real thing, by the way. It’s a sliding scale, a unit of measurement that isn’t quantifiable. But for those who would use the descriptor of ‘heavy’, that’s what this song is there to be.” “Things Could Be Different” “That's the first song I wrote for the album. This one and the last song on the album are the only songs that kind of touch on my personal life. There were a couple more I wrote that didn't make the album because I'd approached them the same way as I usually would, where it was personal moments from