After dangling a few singles over our heads, Perth’s Pincer+ are well and truly stepping into a new era. With a lineup change that has seen new vocalist Jaiden Higgon and bassist Isryan Shah step into the fold, the band are marking this next stage with the brand new album Who Are You When No One’s Around.

We caught up with guitarist Jordan Burnon and frontman Jaiden Higgon to chat about where they’ve been, the new album and their return to stage. 

So I have to say, I’ve listened to the album and I’m really annoyed because again, you guys have dropped a release at the end of the year and you’ve messed up my album/release of the year! You did the same with Hunting God Tapes: Part Two and now this one. So what has been happening though, since we last saw Pincer+ because you guys have been pretty quiet for most of this year?

Jordan: Basically, after our last tour with Vulvodynia, our vocalist let us know that he wasn’t really feeling things anymore. He was wanting out and we’re like okay- so we’re all on good terms but we were kind of left after our last run without a vocalist. Being in Perth and being so far away from everyone, it means very limited choices, unfortunately. So we were kind of stuck looking for a vocalist for a while and we just couldn’t find someone. And then randomly one day Josh (Ang, guitarist) goes “Hey, there’s this guy I was in a band with when I was in high school” and he seems interested, we can try him out. Jaiden rocked up the studio and basically he just smashed it outta the park straight away. 

And I was like, where the hell have you been hiding this whole time? I’ve never seen this dude in my life and he just absolutely destroyed his first demo. And I said  “oh, that’s sick. You’re our new vocalist.” 

So basically we’ve just kind of been writing this whole time and we’ve just been building up songs slowly and now we’re finally ready to do something.

Post-’Pulling Strings’ there were a lot of whispers on the internet, shout out to r/metalcore on Reddit, saying that you guys were over? Was that ever the case or were you guys just laying low?

Jordan: <laughs> Yeah, we never wanted to throw in the towel, but being in Perth it was making it very difficult to find people- especially people willing to not just be a local band. We very much don’t want to just be a local band. We were just trying to find the right people, so we decided to just basically keep quiet that whole time. Leave it up to Reddit to think about what we’re doing <laughs>

So, the new album is out this week and we’ve heard a few singles, so what has been the process of putting this album together?

Jordan: Well, a lot of the songs were demoed out just before the Vulvodynia Tour, so they’ve actually been sitting for a while. Once Jackson left, we did a kind of reshuffle of some things. We changed our guitar tuning and just because we didn’t have a vocalist, we were left to sit with what we had essentially and just start reshuffling things and trying to find new angles and all that sort of stuff. We had a whole album’s worth of material ready to go. And we were just, we were looking for a vocalist.

Jaiden: Yeah. Yeah. That’s where I come in. 

So there is a lot of mix of that OG Pincer+ sound, but as always, you guys are never really afraid to experiment or take it somewhere a little bit different, a little bit new. So what has been the inspiration behind that bit more stylistic evolution of Pincer+?

Jordan: We always strive to be a heavy band, whether that be just pure aggression and breakdowns or emotionally. I think that’s something that we very much strive to keep in the band. We don’t wanna not be a heavy band. 

I wanted to chat about the features on the album a little bit. You’ve got Noah Thomas of sace6, but also the one I really wanna talk about is Jay Webster from UnityTX. Now I kind of know that Josh and Jay have been like online gaming together…

Jordan: <laughs> yeah they’ve been playing Fortnite for a very long time.

Is that kind of how that collaboration came about?

Jordan: Pretty, pretty much. We were looking for a feature for two songs. Yeah. Yeah. And do you want to take this Jaidon? 

Jaiden: It’s just pretty much how it came about really. We were looking for two features and going back between a few of them and Josh just said, “how about Jay? You know, he is a good friend” and it also worked out ’cause they were here supporting Void of Vision at the time. We got to meet him and smashed it out in about a day.

Jordan: Yeah, it was quite literally a couple of hours.

Is there anything else on the album you really wanna highlight or any little tidbits or something we should really pay attention to?

Jordan: Honestly I think it’s different for us but it’s very much still us at its core. It’s almost like the direction we want to be heading I think. It’s classic Pincer+ with a new twist.

So you guys have also been announced as support for Zuko on the East coast?

Jordan: Yes! Melbourne sold out today!

I’m not surprised! So you’re hitting the East Coast. Have you got any more tour dates kind of in the works?

Jordan: Uh, nothing that we can say. 

Also obviously you guys are appearing at Froth and Fury, the Perth only one unfortunately. Very annoyed that you’re not at the Adelaide one, but how are you guys feeling for that one?

Jordan: Very, very, excited. It’s going to be our first show in over a year. We played Adelaide (Vulvodynia Tour 2024) and then we played with Diamond Construct in Perth two weeks later, and we haven’t played a show since. We have been quietly writing this whole time and we cannot wait to get back.

Because you guys were always that band that whenever the other bands weren’t gonna go over to Perth, it would be like, put Pincer+ on the bill. Are you guys trying to get back onto being that sort of band again?

Jordan: Absolutely. Very much keen to play as much as possible. Yeah, definitely. We love playing shows.

Is it a little bit harder being based in Perth trying to get on those East Coast tours?

Jordan: It’s so difficult. Not only just with life in general, trying to line people’s schedules up ’cause we’re obviously all still have day jobs ’cause we ain’t crazy yet. But also I think a lot of the bands often just don’t want to throw Perth bands a bone because a lot of the time I feel like they’re probably not going to say yes anyway. Some of the offers, like there’s obviously only so much money to go around on these tours and they probably don’t wanna be insulting and it’s just financially a lot of times- it’s just not gonna happen because to get five people to fly over to the Eastern states already you’re down like a thousand bucks in flights. And that’s just getting them there. Then obviously you have to do the whole run, so obviously again, there’s only so much money to go around these tours, so it’s a lot easier to get say a Melbourne based band or Sydney or Brisbane. Everyone’s so packed in together, but we don’t want to be the band that stays in Perth. We want to be the band that’s willing to come over. We absolutely love playing shows, especially the Eastern states. They show a lot of love to us. 

A lot of our readers are based in Southeast Asia. Do you guys have any ideas or plans to kind of head out of Australia next year? Maybe an Asian tour or something like that? Or is that still a little bit far away?

Jordan: We would love to. Hopefully not too far, but it’s more just when the right offer comes. We’ll absolutely be taking it.

So new album’s almost out, we are finishing off the year strong. You’re back better than ever. Tour dates announced for next year. What else can we expect soon from Pincer+ that you’re allowed to tell us?

Jaiden: Don’t wanna give away too much, of course. Other than Froth and Fury and the Zuko run it’s all, all pretty uphill from there. It should be pretty sick and should be a big year.

Is there anything else you want to add before we wrap it up?

Jordan: No, I think we pretty much covered everything. We’re just, um, yeah, very excited to be back in business after so long. We cannot wait to be playing more shows.

Jaiden: Yeah. Very excited for the album to be out. So that’s also good.

And it’ll be your first run of shows, won’t it be Jaiden?

Jaiden: Yes. First one will be a festival. 

Wow. How are you feeling about that?

Jaiden: Excited but definitely nervous, but you know, it’ll be good. It’ll be fun.

_{The new album Who Are You When No One’s Around is out this Friday the 12th of December 2025 via Greyscale Records/1126 Records. Presave here.}

^{You can catch Pincer+ in the new year at Froth & Fury Festival (Perth only).
Tickets here.}

_{You can also catch them supporting Zuko on their upcoming East Coast Tour. Melbourne is already sold out, so get in quick here.}

_{Also NOISE ‘N’ VISUALS is an indie music platform that relies solely on donations and creator funds. If you want to help support the platform and keep it as ad free as possible, please consider donating to our Ko-FI.}

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