Hilera, the Pinoy rock trio who made a mark in the local music circuit with their hits “Define”, “Pilit,” and “Radical,” is back with a brand-new EP called “The Other Way Around.”
Spicing up their signature and snazzy alt-punk sound by injecting “a little twist” to it, the outfit offers six original tracks through their latest effort distributed by Warner Music Philippines. It follows their 2011 record, “Kid In A Coma.”
According to frontman and lead songwriter Chris Padilla, their recently released record explores “the ups and downs of life” and how things don’t always go the way we want them to be.
“Life is like [this]: sometimes, things just go the other way around. But it’s all about going back to the basics,” he shared during their radio interview with Wish 107.5 last November 14.
The rather powerful theme of their EP is best introduced and embodied by its carrier single, “Don’t Think Too Much.”
“I know we’ve been through a lot of pain/ Felt blue and alone/ But I know that one day we’ll look back/And see we’ve won,” the band chants in the lilting OPM jam.
Their latest project also includes the songs “Insomnia,” “Sayang Panahon,” “Naghihintay Sa Wala,” “With Our Hearts,” and “Rule The World.”
Hilera frontman Chris Padilla sings the band’s newest single “Don’t Think Too Much” live aboard the Wish Bus.
Though it took seven years for Hilera to drop a new EP, the band made sure to come back strong with “The Other Way Around.”
The album features intoxicating, polished basslines courtesy of Buddy Zabala (Eraserheads, Cambio, Moonstar88). Zabala joined the group after former band member Ivan Garcia left in 2015 for personal reasons.
Asked about working with the esteemed rock figure, Padilla said that it’s actually “a dream come true.”
“Never did we expect that one day, Buddy is going to be our bandmate.”
Apart from having Zabala, he revealed that recording the whole album at the Ely Buendia-owned Crown’s Nest Studio made the experience “more surreal.”
Buendia and Zabala were both members of the legendary band Eraserheads. Padilla, together with brother and Hilera drummer Bobby Padilla, also works with Buendia as part of the rock supergroup The Oktaves.
To top it all off, the alt-punk trio has enlisted yet another rock titan — Teeth guitarist Jerome Velasco — to mix and master the album’s tracks.
With such OPM heavyweights to give credit for, Padilla couldn’t help but be proud of his band’s newest EP: “All the six songs of the album are special to us.”
Listen to Hilera’s “The Other Way Around” below:
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