Singled Out: Frontline's Four Seasons

05-01-2025

Dutch hard rock band Frontline just released their new EP "Back with a 6-pack", and to celebrate we asked Arti to tell us about the song "Four Seasons". Here is the story:

Some of the new EP's themes are guilt and redemption, and "Four Seasons" definitely encompasses those as well. The song is about the rollercoaster of emotions that one has when investing in something new, losing, and reflecting on it afterwards. The terms "risky wagers" and "double winnings" are mostly associated with financial investments, but the song can apply to any endeavour of investing in something new and unknown which later turns sour. At first it's exciting when you're winning, you think you're smart (though you might just be lucky), and it feels good. After you lose (perhaps even all you invested), you feel embittered, foolish, and it forces you to sit back, reflect, and ultimately makes you wiser. The fact that those elements are so recurrent and inevitable reminded me of the passing of the seasons. As the song says, that's how the "tide of the Four Seasons" goes, "sometimes you score, sometimes you're bleeding".

Of all the songwriting on our new EP, this is definitely that which I'm most proud of: the song rides along like a rollercoaster from start to finish. It started out with the riff that's heard right after the choruses: at 1:21 and 2:11. It has descending staccato guitar notes, coinciding with tom hits of a drum fill. I thought it sounded pretty heavy, but would only work without vocals, when the instrumentation is highlighted. So I used it as a breakdown after the chorus and as a build-up to the solo, and the rest of the song basically got written around that. The intro and outro were written as slight variations of it, and the verse and choruses basically came by themselves. Many of the riffs are played with dual guitar harmonies, which is something I usually don't use, because I don't want us to sound like symphonic metal. However, applying them with short phrases, as was done here, can make them sound heavy and build up suspense. Another technique I used is to let the left and right rhythm guitars play the same verse riff while accentuating different notes. I think that's something Izzy & Slash did terrifically back in the early days of Guns N' Roses, so that definitely inspired me.

That being said, the rest of the band's contributions shouldn't be overlooked. The chorus vocals had first been written at a higher pitch, but Thomas came up with the idea to do it lower, which fitted the half-time pace of the chorus better and made the guitar harmonies stand out more. Wouter started playing some of his fills beautifully in 6/4-time, additions I couldn't have come up with myself. Steven's bass lines gave the song exactly what it needed by following the guitar harmonies not too much, and not too little. Four Seasons is the opening track of our new EP "Back with a 6-pack" and will be out on Spotify and other channels from May 1st onwards.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here