FRANKLIN ZOO
RED SKIES

Franklin Zoo is probably Denmark’s best hidden rock treasure. Until now. The new album ”Red Skies” (first for Mighty Music and first album to be released internationally) consists of melancholic hard rock appealing equally to heart and perception. It clinically investigates honesty and the honest expression for the sake of themselves.
The music reflects states of mind, which are born from the members’ need for space to express the mellow side of life by loss, forbidden longing and existential deprivation. It is driven by an ambivalent anxiety of being successful as well as having success. It is an aggressive, massive and powerful expression inspired by artful music, which in the bands experience is everything from Bowie to Nirvana, or from Nick Cave binging with Mastodon and Soundgarden. The music is the companion of a beautiful and clear lyrical universe, which is denoted by its clinical honesty while encompassing the less admirable traits of the ordinary man.
“Red Skies” is the result of an artistic need. The main composers in the band all have an upbringing denoted by elements of desertion, loss, substance abuse and melancholia, where music became a necessity to mentally survive. Although safe, none have come out of this unscathed and today they all have an innate need to express the painful sensation of the chronic lostness in their adult existential foregrounds. Creating a new riff, chords and lyrics thus become a piece of themselves, which they share as a bittersweet gift hoping to touch upon or even comfort the listener. Trying to let the pain be empowering instead of debilitating. The music grants the opportunity to say what one is not otherwise able to say or ashamed of being. Thus “Red Skies” is the child of the members’ individual histories and addiction to music that investigates and contains the nuances of existential misery. And this can be heard; they never stop to strive for purity nor look away when curiously and painfully investigating themselves as an existential object. It is an album, which has caused a lot of pain to create and which the band is of course aware of how is received. But first and foremost: It is a record they have made for their own sake. The prestige of it is received does not make the artistic process more or less necessary for the members; it just makes the reception more or less successful, which is not the most important.
The album was recorded in Vibe Factory Studios in Copenhagen using John Paul Jones’ old Neve in cooperation with Jacob Bredahl (Hatesphere, The Kandidate).