Interviews

 Cinemascope's dark, powerful romanticism can leave "A Crack On The Wall"!

Cinemascope are back with their second full length album, "A Crack On The Wall", released on February 14th, via Wave Records. Eight years since their debut "Stains Of Love" the solo project of Leo Skiadas returns with an album that is here to stand beside the greatest dark indie, post-punk releases of the year. 

"A Crack On The Wall" manages to leave a sense of optimism and anticipation for the light, out of these strange times, the darkness, the melancholy and disappointment of the depressed lyrics and the betrayal coming out of the 8 tracks included in the album. Leo Skiadas took the chance of the pandemic and, besides all the difficulties that this period brought, created a compact collection of songs. He manages to balance between the lines of pure goth rock lines found in "In Silence" and the melancholic, dark melody of "Let Me Be Angel", to the soulful indie soundscapes of "Ocean" and "Die In Summer, in the pure post-punk in "Vicious Circle Game" and "Fall" to the ghostly ambience of "Leaving Is My Way To Breathe" and the synth oriented and pop attitude of "Sometimes".

In order to go around and get our heads into every track in the "A Crack On The Wall", I invited the man behind Cinemasope, Leo skiadas to a track-by-track interview and breakdown of each song. Leo Skidas reveals the insights of every "turn" in this journey and the inspirations that influenced Cinemascope's soundscapes. Read about and listen to "A Crack On the Wall" 's tracks.

photo by Stella Mouzi

Ocean

This is the starting song of the album. The way it sounds takes me back to the 80’s, Clan of Xymox, days that are my most favorite era of them. It’s a song about living on a big city shit hole (“im standing on the dirty floor”) and dreaming of getting away and live on the countryside, wake up every day and stare at the sea (“I’d like to breathe the ocean breeze”). But, it’s a dream that never comes true as we are just “watching the days go by” and do nothing about it.

 Vicious Circle Game 

It’s start reminds me a bit of “dream never ends” of new order. It’s a post punk song that speaks of humans that love each other but have not the ability to communicate their thoughts and feelings and drown them deep inside for ever. They know that this not the right thing to do but they also know that they will do that again and again because that’s how they are.

In Silence 

It’s the song that I choose to be the first single. It is a straight forward goth song that you gonna love it or hate it from the very first time you listen to it. I wanted to do a dark dancefloor song that could stand next to She Past Away and The Sisters. It is about people that talk too much and their deeds show too little. So, in these cases, please “keep me in silence”. Some other guys said it better, I must admit: words are very unnecessary, they can only do harm.

Leaving Is My Way To Breathe 

The dance atmosphere that takes hold of the album so far takes an ethereal shape this time. This is a song that speaks about confinement on a relationship that you feel that you are not able to change it and make it work, and choose to walk away instead. Maybe because it’s the easy way. Or is it the only way?

Die In Summer 

At the time that I’m writing these lines this is my favorite song of the album. It’s a song that I really like how it evolves and I really like it’s refrain, it’s quite sing along and pop friendly. I really appreciate the alternative musicians that have the ability to compose good pop songs and I think that I am about there with this one. It’s lyrics on the other side, are not that pop friendly with people in their youth that flirt with the idea of committing suicide while they are still in their peak of their life.

Fall 

The inspiration for this one came from a documentary I watched on TV quite a few years ago about people that left from the DDR when they were free to do so, fascinated by the lights and glamour of the Western Europe, and now are not satisfied by their choice and how things evolved, feeling nostalgia about how things were back then.

Sometimes 

Sometimes speaks about all the times that you feel week, unsatisfied and afraid, and dream of a better place. Synths are more present than ever on this one and that could make it almost a synthpop song. Quite catchy if I might say.

Let Me Be Angel 

The closing track of the album is the only slow tempo song. That could be a deathwish or a cry for help. Or a desperate need of escape. This is also the song that contains the phrase “a crack on the wall” that became the album’s title.

Cinemascope is Leo Skiadas, who composes the songs, writes and vocalize the lyrics, and plays the instruments. But, If you feel that “A Crack On The Wall” has a more impressive guitar sound than Cinemascope’s previous works, that's because this time, the guitars are performed by Johnny Papaioannou, one of the greatest alternative musicians in Greece. That’s the first time that someone “intrudes” on the Cinemascope moniker and one of the best decisions that the band ever made.

 Info:

https://cinemascope.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063630818174

https://soundcloud.com/cinemascope

https://waverecords.bandcamp.com/album/w136-cinemascope-a-crack-on-the-wall