Shoreline: The Dawn of A New Album

Ahead of this Friday's release, we sat down to chat to Hansol Seung of Shoreline to chat all about upcoming album ‘Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After?’, his unique recording process, future plans and more! 

So, of course, the main reason that I am here chatting to you is because you have your latest album ‘Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After?’ coming out next month, how are you feeling?

Great, actually! I mean, this is not the first record we're putting out, but every time we do, we are very… almost anxious but excited for people to hear it. Especially with this one because, with every piece of music we've written so far, there's always something I would’ve liked to go back and change maybe a little bit, but for this record, I haven't really figured that out yet. Maybe it'll come whenever it's released. I know it's almost a trope that every band says that their newest record is their best, but I truly believe we've never written a better record than this time!

How long in total would you say the album was in the works from start to finish?

Oh, we were pretty quick this time! I think we started writing for it last year, maybe a year ago. I remember we recorded a single called ‘Forgive’ as a separate session, but the whole record came together from March last year. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd8f1lMQb5s

Speaking of ‘Forgive’, you got to work with Joe Taylor of Knuckle Puck on that one, and of course he features on that track. How did that whole collaboration come around, and how was working with him? 

Oh, it was so cool. Knuckle Puck took us out on tour in the UK… I think it was two years ago? Yeah 2024. That was the first time that we've ever had anything to do with them. It was pretty cool for such a well-established band to take out such a young band, and also a band that they haven't met before and we really got along on tour. We basically had the song written, and we knew we wanted to have a guest vocal on the second verse, and I just DM'd him on Instagram and he made it happen. So we were very thankful for everything he's done for the song but also the band in general for taking us out.

 Other than of course ‘Forgive’, what did your creative process look like as a whole? You mentioned previously that you kind of had your own studio for it. How was the writing and post-production for the album?

So usually it's either Julius or me. We are both main songwriters for the band and either of us will bring a demo to rehearsal and show the other guys, and I find out most times you write so many more demos than songs end up on the record. I'm sure we've written like 20 songs for this one or 20 demos!

Yeah it’s usually us sitting at home recording with headphones into a laptop, in our own very private room. This time was a little different for me because I recently moved, and in my old flat, I was able to record vocals. I can record guitar through some fancy studio setup with my laptop, and it's not really loud because it's an electric guitar. I can program drums, and all that I can do like at 10pm and no one will really notice. Singing, is kind of difficult because I'm shouting a lot, I’d say I have a pretty loud voice and you can't really fake that, you actually have to sing to make it sound in a certain way. I couldn't do that anymore in my flat. So what I did is I went with my laptop and my microphone, and I sat in my car. I have a small Smart Fortwo, really tiny car, and I drove to a nearby field and recorded demos there, sitting in that car and tracking vocals. It was kind of a funny setup, But it was summer, so it was kind of romantic in a way, sitting in a field, the sun's going down, and I'm like, shouting into my microphone, sitting in a Smartcar!

I feel like every time that you kind of listen to the record, you're always going to remember that now! And honestly, I'm gonna have that in the back of my mind now, when I'm next listening!

Yeah, also as silly and as funny as it sounds, it really helps me because… I don't think embarrassment is the right term, because I'm not embarrassed of showing the guys ideas or lyrics. In the beginning, when I'm not too confident about the initial idea myself, I would be a little hesitant to show them something that is not a finished demo. So it gave me the opportunity to be on my own in a closed space where I could just try out stuff, even stuff that I would consider, ‘cringe’ and see if it works or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJjwBcwWdQI

I also absolutely love the album name! How did you come up with, ‘Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After?’ And could you talk a little more about the concept and the flow of the album?

I think there's a saying that goes, ‘Is the worst yet to come?’ I don't know if that counts as a saying or if that's just something people say all the time. I think that the album title, is a positive way to ask that question. I feel like if you ask, ‘Is the worst yet to come,?’ You anticipate that things are going to get worse, right? You're hoping it's not, but you're anticipating that it might. Getting the question the other way around, ‘Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After?’ You accept that there is something after the worst, there is something after being devastated, there's a chance of things getting better. I just tried to find a wording that has a more positive and hopeful connotation to that question. 

We've touched on this album as a whole and the overall concept. How would you say it compares to your previous releases, such as ‘Figure Out’ for example, which was only released a year or so ago?

We've become a less experimental band. That's what I would say. With ‘Figure Out’ we had songs on there that are really influenced by what I’d call contemporary pop culture and pop music that we're also into. By that I mean synths and decisions about melodies but also with just pure drum beats. We use so many disco beats on that song and have so many fade outs and synths. It was really fun to do that but we figured out that we've always been an emo punk band and we’ll probably stay that forever. There’s bands out there who constantly reinvent themselves, and with every new record they kind of have a new sound, and then there's bands like Bad Religion or Drug Church, and they just have their sound. I feel that Shoreline is probably more like Drug Church and Bad Religion in that sense. I think we found our niche and what we like to do as a band. 

So to answer your question, I think we've just written a piece of music that feels like where we belong sonically. No experiments. I don't want to make it sound like we didn't put a lot of effort into it because that's definitely not the case, but we're not worrying about any kind of, should we cross-reference the new, I don't know, Loyle Carner record in here? Like that's fun, we've done that before, but there was not even a discussion this time.

Moving to talk touring, later in the year you're finally doing your own headlines over here for your album release shows. You've got a run across Europe and then November you're returning to the UK. What was it that made you decide that now was the right time to headline?

This (Tour with Arm’s Length) is our fifth UK tour and it's the third real/proper one I'd say. We've done two very DIY tours in the UK that have been a great time, but it's more like playing in a basement in front of ten people and sleeping there, like sleeping on a stage kind of situation. This is the third proper support tour and we figured that we are, I don't know, just trying to test the waters. Honestly, playing a UK headliner feels scary because we are unsure how many people will actually return and come for us. But we will see!

You guys are so busy in 2026. You've basically got the rest of the year planned out all the way to November! Is there anything else in the works that you can tell us about? What's next for Shoreline?

We're trying to figure out some more festivals in the summer, then honestly we just keep on touring. We have nothing else booked yet, but I hope that we'll be able to be on another longer tour next year around this time.

We will certainly do a ‘B market’ tour on the mainland in spring, but all of that is in the making, in the planning, and we will certainly write new music as well, even though our record just comes out in a month! We wrote it last year and that's just what we do. We like writing music and we like recording stuff. So we're probably just going to start recording songs!

 ‘Is This The Low Point Or The Moment After?’ is out March 13th via Pure Noise Records

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Article by Danni Baker