Killswitch Engage Drummer Launches New Band, Lybica

The pandemic has been awful by pretty much any measure, but the silver lining as music fans is that the forced down-time resulted in a number of bands putting out new music sooner than expected and individual members of those bands retreating to their lairs to work on side projects.

Killswitch Engage fans got double-lucky in that way: Adam D. and Jesse Leach finally released their long-awaited Times of Grace sophomore effort after a ten-year wait, and now drummer Justin Foley has announced the launch of a project of his own, Lybica, a three-piece instrumental outfit operating out of South Florida, his current place of residence.

Lybica today unveiled “Ferment,” their debut single, and it’s pretty damn cool! It’s not Killswitch-y in the slightest — nor should it be, as this is what side projects are for! — but if that’s what you’re expecting, sorry. The outfit sees Foley don both the drums and guitar along with Joey Johnson on guitar and Doug French on bass, both of whom are drummers by trade branching out and experimenting here. I’d describe “Ferment” as somewhere in the nexus of Russian Circles, And So I Watch You From Afar and, like, Crowbar. It’s pretty rad, I think!

Foley explains:

“I’d written a bunch of stuff that didn’t quite fit into traditional song structures. And I’ve always been drawn to bands where the instruments provide hooks, rather than relying on a lyric. It seemed like a good time to start something new and see where it could go.”

Lybica, named after a small wildcat species native to Africa that is widely considered the godfather of the modern house cat — all the band members are fervent cat-lovers — haven’t announced an album yet, but whenever that comes down the pike it’ll be on Metal Blade Records (also home to Killswitch).

Jam “Ferment” below.