Japan's Crossfaith are returning to Australia as support to Amity Affliction in September, on the back of last years acclaimed album Ex_Machina which many observers claim is the heaviest release of the band's career.

"When we started making that album it was supposed to be the heaviest we had made", affirmed vocalist Kenta 'Ken' Koie, "but I think it is well balanced. It has mellow stuff and more bouncy stuff and of course there are heavy songs such as 'The Perfect Nightmare' but... it was based on a concept so we didn't have to make the album heavy as such. Now we are writing new songs and they are SUPER heavy, so please wait for it".

While being easier to listen to because they follow one central theme, Ken argues that the actual writing process for Ex_Machina was anything but.

"It was hard", he stressed. "before we made the music we started conversations on the concept and, yeah, it was hard. Talking, talking, talking before making the music was stressful but also important and everyone knew that so we didn't give up and we kept on talking and kept on making music, but it was hard. The concept is kind of... it's hard to tell and people are always thinking about it and how the technology and the humanity blend so it worked but was still kind of hard to finish".

In the full interview Ken tells us what to expect from the bands shows, talks about their relationship with their fans, heavy music in Japan, how much goes into a Crossfaith live performance, why they write and sing their songs in English and how that made things harder with fans in their own country, early goals for the band, how their sound came about, how clean vocals have steadily built themselves into their albums and more.