COVER - The Plot In You: "People gravitate toward authenticity. Sometimes I realise things about myself as I’m saying them."
- Lou Viner-Flood
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
There’s a particular kind of restlessness that defines THE PLOT IN YOU, a tension that’s lived in the project since Landon Tewers first broke away from BEFORE THEIR EYES back in 2010. Over the years, the band has evolved from brutal metalcore to wounded post‑hardcore to dark alt‑metal, never settling long enough for anyone to pin them down. Their upcoming full‑length release, The Volume Series, feels like the most honest expression of that instinct yet. It’s a record built slowly, in fragments of a four-part project, across years of touring, burnout, and emotional excavation.
When vocalist Landon talks about how the project came together, there’s no grand concept, no master plan. “On the last album, anything that wasn’t a single just didn’t get attention,” he says. “We wanted to try something where we could treat every song like a single.” Instead of locking himself away for a month to force an album into existence, he wrote whenever the moment felt real. “It gave me the freedom to do it when I actually felt like doing it, rather than any pressure,” he explains. “And getting to play new songs every tour kept things fresh - testing the waters, seeing what works live.”
That looseness shaped the emotional DNA of the record. Across the series, certain themes echo through loud and clear - cycles, repetition, and the sense of returning to the same emotional rooms even after you’ve sworn them off. But Landon insists none of it was planned. “Oddly enough, not very intentional,” he says. “I’ve been trying to let things come out naturally instead of sticking to a concept. A lot of the songs talk about different things, all condensed into one. They apply to different parts of my life.” Writing, for him, is a kind of overlapping excavation of ideas, rather than a single one. “It’s always been therapeutic,” he adds. “Each song being its own idea has been really inspiring.”
Some of the record’s sharpest edges come from looking outward. Divide, one of the series’ most pointed tracks, was born from the post‑COVID fracture that tore through friendships and families. “Everybody in my life was super divided on everything, like politically, socially,” he says. “It was irritating. Nobody was getting along. It was just an observation of that, as someone who just wants to enjoy friendships without everything turning into an argument.”
Forgotten, one of the emotional anchors of the project, is a meditation on erasure, speaking not just of people, but of entire stories. “I have friends back home with addiction,” Landon says quietly. “Sometimes I’ll hear someone from my hometown has passed. It’s really sad thinking about how many people suffer in silence without resources.” The song resonated more deeply than he expected. He admits he was pleasantly surprised by how people reacted to the track, “Sometimes songs just skip over people’s heads, but that one connected. It’s one of our favourites to play live.”
Reinvention has always been the engine of THE PLOT IN YOU, but The Volume Series pushes that instinct further. “We went into it with the mindset of trying as many different things as possible and not playing it safe,” Landon says. “Some songs don’t even sound like they belong on the same album, which was the intention.” He laughs when talking about the risks. “Forgotten was a huge gamble; an all‑out heavy single with a big‑budget video. And Spare Me was another one that was super heavy with a high‑pitched, upper‑range chorus. But pushing boundaries keeps it fun.”
Despite the band’s evolution, one thing hasn’t changed: Landon still writes everything. “I’ve always been the only songwriter,” he says. “I have a very specific idea in my head, and I change my mind a lot. It would be taxing on someone else. It’s easier for me to connect to what I’m singing if I have full control.” But he’s quick to emphasise that the band is still a machine with multiple moving parts. “Everyone serves their purpose. We’re a well‑oiled machine.”
His vocal identity, from the venomous screams, the wounded croons to the radio-ready hooks, has become the band’s signature. But he doesn’t overthink it. “I almost always write the instrumental first,” he says. “Whatever the instrumental calls for, that’s where I go. I experiment a lot. After almost 20 years, I’ve built different ways of conveying emotion.” He’s aware that fans split into camps: the ones who want the heavy stuff, the ones who want the melodic stuff. “It’s cool seeing both sides connect to different parts,” he says.
Writing about personal conflict without romanticising it is a tightrope, and Landon admits he doesn’t always get it right. “Sometimes I probably do romanticise it unintentionally,” he says. “But I try to be as honest as possible. People gravitate toward authenticity. Sometimes I realise things about myself as I’m saying them, like, I didn’t even know I felt that way until it came out.”
He lights up when talking about other artists. “I love BILLIE EILISH’s last record,” he says. “There’s a heavy band called VILLANOVA who are a perfect gym band. I don’t get much time to listen for enjoyment, but those have stuck with me.” Whilst playing at Download recently, he caught THROWN and BREAKING BENJAMIN’s performances, both of which left a mark, but says, “Mostly we hid in the green room playing video games.” As for what comes next, he doesn’t offer a genre or direction. He offers rest. “I’m taking a breather,” he says. “It’s been tour, write, record, nonstop. I need to live some life. After this tour, I’m in rest mode. No music.” He laughs, but there’s relief in it.
In the end, THE PLOT IN YOU haven’t outrun their restlessness; they’ve learned to sit with it without letting it consume them. The Volume Series isn’t a declaration of identity; it’s a place where the band stops breaking themselves open just to prove they can. For a project built on emotional violence, the most radical move now is choosing not to bleed.
The Volume Series will be released on 10th July 2026 via Fearless Records.
Words: Lou Viner-Flood
Cover Photo: Wyatt Clough
Photo Design: Robert Halls
Live Photos: Tyler Whiting
Editorial Lead: Amber Brooks
With Thanks To: Hayley Connelly and Good As Gold
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