Explore The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die's cinematically heavy reinvention in this immersive Chris Teti playthrough video
See firsthand how Foals, Gojira and Deftones each informed the band's monster single, Invading the World of the Guilty as a Spirit of Vengeance
When Connecticut emo titans The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die dropped Invading the World of the Guilty as a Spirit of Vengeance back in August it was an impressively grand statement, even from a band whose music often plays with the gravity of operas or Greek tragedies.
Named one of our essential guitar tracks the week it was released, the song – the lead single from the band's new album, Illusory Walls – was a surprising, but certainly not unwelcome, tonal shift, displaying the influences of twisty math-rock and down-tuned metal chug.
According to guitarist Chris Teti, this was no accident. "This track [Invading the World of the Guilty...] first started as Antidotes-era Foals worship, guitar-wise," he tells Guitar World. "I was trying to focus on higher staccato chord hits and muted single note lines to accent the synth part in the verse.
"For years I’ve wanted to add tapping guitar lines to a TWIABP song since I take a lot of influence from bands like Russian Circles, Gojira and Native, but I could never find a spot where it felt necessary on our older material," he continued. "The stars aligned with the higher tuning/capo on the leads for this track, which put it in a comfortable range for me to finally dig into that influence and explore new ground for us."
You can watch Teti explore these disparate influences and techniques in his immersive new playthrough video for the song, which Guitar World is premiering today, below.
One of the immediately striking aspects of Invading the World of the Guilty..., on first listen, is the dynamic contrast of Teti's high-register tapping with the song's brutal, low-register baritone riffing. The guitarist detailed how he created this many-layered sonic storm to Guitar World:
"For most of the songs on the record I laid out a single guitar skeleton demo and then went back through adding in all of the additional parts. I laid out the initial guitars for this track with a capo on the 7th fret and knew it would need something lower to fill out the sound.
Get The Pick Newsletter
All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
"Dynamically it all felt to be in a similar register, so I wanted to further separate out the guitar tracks with a larger octave spread," Teti continued. "I realized I was exactly an octave up from standard baritone tuning, so I built all the rhythm guitars off of both the heavy use of baritones as well as the EHX Pitchfork blending in the lower octave for the capo-ed up guitar lines."
Though it was recorded with a slimmed-down five-member lineup, Teti wanted Illusory Walls to show fearlessness, depth and a side of pure, feral aggression.
"The use of baritones in TWIABP for me is influenced by bands like the Deftones and O’Brother," he said. "While I’ve used baritones in our previous material, I really wanted to make their presence more featured and aggressive this time around. Thankfully my co-producer, Greg Thomas, comes from a heavier musical background and he really helped push me further into that realm tonally.
"We’ve had hints of it in previous material, but never fully committed," Teti added. "Even though I’m the only guitarist in the band now, I didn’t want this album to come across like it was missing any of the depth or layering of the previous records; in fact I wanted to push everything further."
- Illusory Walls is available now via Epitaph Records.
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month**
Join now for unlimited access
US pricing $3.99 per month or $39.00 per year
UK pricing £2.99 per month or £29.00 per year
Europe pricing €3.49 per month or €34.00 per year
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Jackson is an Associate Editor at GuitarWorld.com. He’s been writing and editing stories about new gear, technique and guitar-driven music both old and new since 2014, and has also written extensively on the same topics for Guitar Player. Elsewhere, his album reviews and essays have appeared in Louder and Unrecorded. Though open to music of all kinds, his greatest love has always been indie, and everything that falls under its massive umbrella. To that end, you can find him on Twitter crowing about whatever great new guitar band you need to drop everything to hear right now.
“My friend talked to a roadie, and they said to come back the next day to meet at Steve Howe’s hotel room in downtown Detroit”: When he was a teen, Duane Denison tried to sell a vintage jazz box to one of his guitar heroes
“David Ellefson told me, ‘You got the gig. Oh and by the way, Dave told me to tell you that you played many of the wrong guitar parts’”: Marty Friedman tells the inside story of his auditions with Ozzy Osbourne and Madonna – and landing the Megadeth gig