Track-by-Track: JAYLER Sum Up Their Debut Album ‘VOICES UNHEARD’

It’s not often that a band causes this kind of hype with a debut album, but JAYLER has really managed to catch fire in a very unique way. The band is releasing their debut album, VOICES UNHEARD, today, via Silver Lining Music. The English band is already managing to stand out, thanks to their single releases, which have already garnered millions of streams. The groove-laden, timeless rock n’ roll of “Need Your Love” has provided listeners of a great sense of what JAYLER is all about. They wear their influences on their sleeves and aren’t afraid to admit their love of classic riff-rock. Their songs are loud and emotional, built for a stadium setting.

As the band attests, there is no real formula when it comes to them writing songs. It’s just about keeping things fresh and organic, which typically creates the right recipe for the right riffs to come. They are very much old-school in their approach, which stands in stark contrast to your average overproduced radio songs that you hear nowadays. Everything is imagined, written, and brought to life by the four men in the band. It’s a tried, tested, and true approach that leads to the right results. JAYLER is not a throwback act, but they want you to know the music that they appreciate.

To coincide with the release of VOICES UNHEARD, JAYLER guitarist Tyler Arrowsmith joins us for an exclusive Track-by-Track rundown of this exciting debut album.

1. “Down Below”

“This track starts with an intro, as we want people to feel like they’re in the room with us and that they’re part of the album. You can hear us opening the door, plugging in and tuning up, which was all left in on purpose. We then start with ‘Down Below,’ which we believe was originally called ‘Give Me The Beans,’ and then ‘Bluesy Thing.’ Everyone always loves the energy when we play it on stage, and as we’ve been starting our set with it for at least a year, we knew it had to be the album opener. It’s a homage to the blues classics. It’s about a breakup and that unique and painful emotion that everyone goes through at some point in their lives.”

2. “Riverboat Queen”

“Sometime last year, (lead singer) James (Bartholomew) had written lyrics for a ballad and asked the rest of us to write a nice, soft track to go along with them. Well, instead of that, we sent a loud, in-your-face bluesy slide guitar rock track and said, ‘Here’s your damn ballad!’ And once James had heard it, he was blown away, and in a couple of weeks he had the lyrics done.

“It was written around the time we met our management team, Adam Parsons and Lisa Perry. In a sense it became a song for them — they’re the ‘Riverboat Queen’ and the river is the music industry. As we’ve found from past experiences, there can be rough waters out there and rapids that can take you in if you’re not careful, so the whole song is a metaphor for the industry and jumping abord the right ship so you don’t sink.”

3. “Need Your Love”

“‘Need Your Love’ is a track that had been written for a while but was waiting for lyrics. James was inspired by the natural human instincts and the way that pheromones can play a huge role in that primal instinct when you meet someone that you like, and you’re drawn to each other without really knowing why. It’s not thought out, it just happens. Maybe it has happened at a bar, a party, a drunk night out, it may feel a bit reckless, but you don’t care!”

4. “The Getaway”

“We like to call this track our most ‘poppy’ track on the album. It has an upbeat tempo and melody that is more reminiscent of ’80s pop, especially when the chorus kicks in, as it’s got a massive bed of vocal harmonies behind the lead vocal, which is very much in your face on purpose. The lyrics are about the one that got away. They’re gone and have left you with something, but you keep on chasing them.”

Jayler ‘Voices Unheard’ album artwork

5. “Bittersweet”

“‘Bittersweet’ tells the story of saying goodbye to someone to pursue something else in life. That could be a job, a journey, for mental health. In this case, it was having to leave some to focus on music. Music comes first, but that period was bittersweet because there had been good times, even if those good times had to come to an end. There’s soft acoustic piano and a little bit of cymbal swelling, and we wanted to keep the recording as raw as possible — it’s a song that really throws off the emotion.

“James wrote ‘Bittersweet’ on an acoustic guitar one day when he had a migraine and didn’t want to be in the studio with loud guitars and drums. It was a difficult track to lay down as me and James were in the room together, recording the guitar and vocals as one take. It had to be perfect as there’s no room for editing when it’s done live like that. Once we got the take, we were all very emotional. There were even tears. It’s a unique song with a special sound.”

6. “Hate To See It End”

“After the soft sounds of ‘Bittersweet’ finish and you flip the record over, we wanted to bring the energy back up, and we believe that this track does exactly that. This one has more of an upbeat country/folk vibe, which draws influences from Bob Dylan, John Denver, and Crosby, Stills & Nash. It’s about not letting the good times end. We all love Jayler, and all of us would hate to see this end, touch wood, it won’t. The song taps into the fact that we’re a band that’s proud to be ourselves, determined to ignore the outside noise and do what the hell we want.”

7. “Over The Mountain”

“This was a track that started while James wasn’t at the studio, and I was messing around with a riff in the live room. The other guys started jamming with me, and what came out sounded pretty good! We’d only written the verse section of the riff, and when we sent it to James, he liked it, but said that the chorus had to be straight up, in your face, with three or four chords. So that’s how it turned out.

“The song is for people who are trying to overcome a challenge in their lives, maybe a fear or an addiction. The message is that even if the mountain you are trying to climb over seems massive and unachievable, what is on the other side is worth the journey and perseverance.”

8. “Alectrona”

“This track started when I was messing around with some new chords I’d found, and James said that he’d like to hear something that’s a bit more laid back and sludgy compared to what you might hear on ‘Need Your Love,’ for example, but with a huge chorus. I think we’ve realized that to be powerful, we don’t need to play fast and ferocious.

“Lyrically, it stems from James being into Greek mythology, and he’s describing what he thinks it would feel like to be in the same room as the Greek Goddess of the sun, Alectrona, and it may be a little bit flirtatious at times. It’s also a fun track to play live as it’s pretty much built around chords, and I also get to do a big extended solo on this track, which is always fun!”

9. “Lovemaker”

“This is one of the oldest tracks on the album, originally written in 2023 from a riff that James had been working on. I remember us working on lyrics at my house as we were desperately trying to write new material, as all we wanted to do was to release an album. We originally went into a studio in 2024 to record some tracks, but it didn’t really work out the best due to a number of reasons, some our fault, others not. But ‘Lovemaker’ did get released originally in 2024, mainly as we just wanted to get some new music out. However, we weren’t happy with the result, so that’s why we felt the need to re-record it to the song some justice!”

10. “The Rinsk”

“So now we reach the last track of the album, this is the big finish track, which, for a festival/support show, is always the set closer. And for our headline shows, this track often becomes a show of its own, as we add hints and riffs from various cover tunes in the middle during the huge jam section, which comes to an end with James’ massive extended solo. Sometimes the track reaches as long as 25 minutes at our own shows!

“Story-wise, ‘The Rinsk’ isn’t a real character; he’s based on a Viking warrior or maybe an Anglo Saxon warlord. He’s been through wars before. And, as we say, the history of man likes to repeat itself. That’s something we’ve always talked about, even going back to the first EP and singles. We wanted this character to serve as a warning that if we don’t change what we’re doing now, then this is how it’s going to end. ‘The Rinsk’ is a kind of higher force that we should look up to. He’s been in the wars, and he regrets everything he’s done, which is something that we will be reflecting on for future albums.”