Newcastle quartet Giant Walker have been making waves through the UK’s thriving alternative underground since the release of their first singles back in 2021, mixing retro, 70s style psych and prog with contemporary rock and post-metal influences. With their sophomore album Silhouettes stamping their name into the scene in 2024 and a relentless touring schedule in 2025, the four-piece laid their process bare on a scorching hot Friday at this year’s Arctangent festival.
From their inception Giant Walker have cited Australian prog metal powerhouse Karnivool as one of their greatest inspirations, in a brilliant twist of fate Giant Walker’s Arctangent debut takes place hours before Karnivool took the main stage for their UK exclusive headliner set. Frontwoman Steff Fish explains “It’s unreal. We were in the first run of bands announced so it’s kind of funny. Obviously you get confirmed for the festival but then you don’t get the artwork until the morning of the announcement, we’re supposed to make a post at 12 o’clock and only get the poster at 11, it was pretty surreal opening the email and seeing that they’re headlining as well”. Guitarist Jamie Southern dives into Karnivool’s impact, saying “It’s wicked, it’s no secret that they’re near the top of the list in terms of influences. We’ve seen them a few times over the last couple of years but it’ll be our first time seeing them in a festival setting”.
While acts like Karnivool and Deftones make up the modern side of Giant Walker’s sound, their retro prog edge has always set them apart from other bands drawing from the same influences. According to Jamie their old-school stylings run deep, “We all grew up listening to classic rock. That’s what got me into music, your AC/DCs, Rainbow, Free, Creedence, all of that 60s and 70s stuff. There’s so much vibe in those recordings”. On the band’s retro inspired ethos he continues “We’re striving to sound like a band as opposed to a perfect sequence. We’re born to be real, not perfect”.
“We’re born to be real, not perfect”
Although they received some praise for their previous work, Giant Walker’s second album Silhouettes marked a tipping point for the band, refining their sound and cementing their name in the UK’s alternative scene. On their work on a follow up Jamie said “it’s started very very recently, it’s sort of like the embers of the last album still but a phoenix will rise which will be the third release of some kind.” with Steff adding “I think it’s quite interesting with this album in comparison to the last one, we had the first one for so long before it was released whereas we were in the studio in January, got the final mixes back in March and released the first single in April so it was a super quick turnaround. What was quite nice was that it all felt really fresh but it was like we blinked and it was out so it doesn’t feel like we’ve had time to think of something else.”
While only a year has passed since the release of Silhouettes, Giant Walker are already learning from their experience with the album and making changes to the way they record their follow-up. Jamie explains “We’ve done two albums in a similar sort of fashion, it was different the second time around but we went with a similar format, same producer, we went into a studio for it, same as the first album. What comes with that is a pressure to deliver in the one week you’re in the studio. We’ve never really had it where we can just spend as much time as we want getting the vibe right, not compromising, maybe with the next one we’ll spend a bit more time on it and not follow some of those traditional recording methods.” Steff adds “When you’re in the studio for those seven days and need to get everything recorded it doesn’t give you a lot of time to second guess anything which in some ways is a good thing but it doesn’t give you a lot of time to experiment.”