Local Music Spotlight: Spokane-based InComing Days – rock, metal and punk?

It can be difficult to wrap up a band in a neat, little, 20-word sentence to capture a whole discography of sound in a couple of words or genre names. For InComing Days, it certainly ain’t no easy task.

The Spokane-based band makes music that can safely be called rock, but beyond that you wander into a whole field of possible descriptions, all of which hold some truth, but not all of it: metal, punk, rock, many of the subgenres of each.

Vocalist Wyatt Miller called the band’s music “trashy pop chug,” which I didn’t quite understand, but guitarist Travis Hewson was kind enough to explain: “The reason he calls it trashy pop chug is anyone who hears it says that it sounds like stuff, but it’s something they’ve never quite heard before.

“It’s not that we’re hitting any different notes. We just have a bounce to us and a groove to us.”

The band has been in business for more than four years, during which time they’ve accomplished a lot, releasing a self-titled EP on all platforms and settling into a strong five-man lineup. It’s a long way up from where things started, with Hewson’s Craigslist ad looking for bandmates.

Now, with a lineup set in stone, the band has had the time to develop chemistry and friendship in and through the music they make. “We’re all like a family, and we care about each other,” drummer Chance Johnson said. “I think that’s exemplified in the energy of the music that comes out. And then live, people pick up on that.”

“We all have our individual things that we bring to the table and our own unique style,” Miller added. “We all know what we’re doing, and we stay in our lane,” guitarist Scott Myhre said. It’s a synergistic group rather than a competition for greatest showman.

InComing Days places a huge emphasis on its live sets. In the words of bassist Chris Corey, “We were born out of live music, live performance.”

For Miller, it’s more than just a point of origin, but the social function of the band: “A lot of the show is the environment we create when we take the stage. It’s all-inclusive, all-inviting.” And musically, it’s where a band with heavy, driven rock like InComing Days comes to life.

But don’t be deceived. True as it is that live music is the ideal manifestation of InComing Days, they have shown that on recorded tracks, too, they can bring the heat. Their latest track, a single titled “Lights Out,” is as good a demonstration as any. “Lights Out” is a really smooth composition, with all five players, as Myhre said, in their lanes.

The bass and drums hold down a tight bottom end, while the rhythm guitar’s grindy, heavier back line forms the song’s main riff. Right up front, you’ve got a lead guitar part that even goes so far as to burst into a shredding solo and a diverse set of vocal movements to keep the song really and truly dynamic.

Even though the main feature of the track is Miller’s triple-threat vocals (he sings, screams and raps through the track), each and every member does have a moment when their part comes to the front, or shows how important it is. InComing Days is a five-piece band that makes full use of every member.

“It exemplifies the exact sort of sound and style and also the feel that I want people to come to InComing Days with – it’s heavy, but it’s not violent,” Hewson said.

“This is more of a straightforward song,” Corey explained. “I call it a march, almost, because you’re just trying to get people to all feel the same thing at the same time together, create community, in a way.”

It’s easy to rally around a song like “Lights Out,” a hurricane of sound and feeling that grabs you. The lyrics, too, are well-written and rain down without cease from Miller. “I really got released as the singer to showcase my range,” he said.

It’s quite the show. Sometimes, Miller will shift from one mode to another before you even notice (rapping to screaming and back, for example). “Lights Out” is nothing if not rapid-fire. What’s more, the single is the first off an upcoming project the band can’t say much about just yet. Expect more music from these guys in the coming months.

If you want to catch InComing Days at a show soon, they have two to offer: May 7 at Cruisers for Texas Hippie Coalition and June 4 at the Big Dipper as openers for Nonpoint. In the meantime, catch “Lights Out” on all streaming platforms, and be sure to follow @InComingDays_Official.

Julien A. Luebbers can be reached at julien.luebbers@gmail.com.