Fiddlehead share new single ‘Sullenboy’
Fiddlehead (Photo credit: Deanie Chen)
Praise for Fiddlehead:
“it’s one of those rare records that not only helps you understand life more by capturing all its highs and lows, but also makes it better. Stunning stuff [Between The Richness]” - Kerrang! Magazine, 4/5
“Fiddlehead’s vital sophomore album [Between The Richness]” - Pitchfork, 7.6
“Fiddlehead make music like they’re screaming at the heavens, and like the heavens are screaming back at them.” - Stereogum
“[Between The Richness] delivered with such undeniable quality that it resonates hard.” - UPSET Magazine, ★★★★
Fiddlehead are back! Today the post-hardcore heroes have announced their upcoming third full-length, Death Is Nothing To Us, due out 18th August via Run For Cover Records. They also announce a UK show at London’s The Garage for 23rd February 2024, with tickets on-sale Friday at 10am BST here.
The album finds Fiddlehead completing the thematic trilogy that began with their previous two releases, resulting in a truly special album that feels like both a culmination of the band's work so far, and one of the years most powerful and life-affirming rock records. Death Is Nothing To Us is Fiddlehead's most dynamic set of songs to date, with every track pushing further into the melodic and aggressive poles of their sound, all while vocalist Pat Flynn tackles difficult existential themes with an open-heartedness that comes through in every word.
To celebrate the announcement, Fiddlehead have shared ‘Sullenboy’ the towering first single from Death Is Nothing To Us. The track captures everything that makes Fiddlehead so great, blending together the unabashed heart of Revolution Summer emo with the hooks of '90s alternative, and delivering amalgam with the intangible energy that comes from their roots in the hardcore scene.
Watch the video for ‘Sullenboy’ here
The release of Fiddlehead's sophomore album, Between The Richness, drew praise from fans and critics alike (including Pitchfork, Stereogum, The FADER, Billboard, SPIN, BrooklynVegan, Paste, and many more), and saw the band unexpectedly becoming one of the most vital groups in rock music today.
On Death Is Nothing To Us, Flynn delves deeper than ever into the nuances of loss and sadness, but his deeply vulnerable approach is exhilarating and often even joyous in its humanity. "I don’t want people to romanticise grief and depression, myself included,” he explains. “But I wanted to write about the way loss can perpetuate this feeling of sadness in your life. I didn’t intend to make some kind of thematic trilogy but there is this connection to the first two records, and this album sort of rounds out some of the stages of grief that weren’t addressed previously–especially this feeling of stickiness that a depressive attitude can have.” The lyrics on Death Is Nothing To Us attempt to reject the allure of sorrow with a deftness and intensity that's matched by Fiddlehead's music, creating one of the most undeniably compelling albums you'll hear this year.
Fiddlehead are playing across the US starting this month, on tour with Citizen, and will play headline shows in September/October, plus a UK show at London's The Garage on 23rd Feb 2024. See full itinerary below.
Death Is Nothing To Us
out 18th August 2023 via Run For Cover Records
Tour Dates
14/06/23 Queens, NY @ Knockdown Center *
15/06/23 Boston, MA @ House of Blues Boston *
17/06/23 Chicago, IL @ House of Blues Chicago *
18/06/23 Chicago, IL @ Metro *
22/06/23 Austin, TX @ Stubb's Waller Creek Amphitheater *
06/24/23 Los Angeles, CA@ The Wiltern *
25/06/23 Anaheim, CA @ House of Blues Anaheim *
22/09/23 Boston, MA - Royale
23/09/23 NYC, NY - Webster Hall
28/09/23 Chicago, IL - Metro
29/09/23 Toledo, OH - Ottawa Tavern
30/09/23 Detroit, MI - Edgemen
01/10/23 Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace
06/10/23 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall
07/10/23 Los Angeles, CA - Ukrainian Culture Centre
08/10/23 Ojai, CA - Ojai Women’s Club
23/02/24 London, UK - The Garage
* w/ Citizen
Death Is Nothing To Us
out 18th August 2023 via Run For Cover Records
Tracklisting
1. The Deathlife
2. Sleepyhead
3. Loserman
4. True Hardcore (II)
5. Welcome to the Situation
6. Sullenboy
7. Give It Time (II)
8. Queen of Limerick
9. The Woes
10. Fiddleheads
11. Fifteen To Infinity
12. Going To Die
More about Fiddlehead:
Formed with the most modest of expectations, Fiddlehead has unexpectedly become one of the most vital groups in rock music. Their fervent audience responds to the urgency of their music, but also the intensely human exploration of loss that’s coloured so much of the band’s output. Fiddlehead’s previous albums, 2018’s Springtime and Blind and 2021’s Between The Richness, dealt heavily with grief from different perspectives, and now their latest album, Death Is Nothing To Us, feels like a de facto culmination, drawing together many of the catalogue’s through-lines sonically and lyrically. The album finds Fiddlehead so deeply delving into the pain, confusion, nuances, and contradictions of sadness–so willingly wrapping their arms around a concept as existentially baffling as death itself–that they’ve created an album that is truly life-affirming.
“I don’t want people to romanticise grief and depression, myself included,” vocalist Patrick Flynn explains. “But I wanted to write about the way loss can perpetuate this feeling of sadness in your life. I didn’t intend to make some kind of thematic trilogy but there is this connection to the first two records, and this album sort of rounds out some of the stages of grief that weren’t addressed previously–especially this feeling of stickiness that a depressive attitude can have.” This is the mental space where Death Is Nothing To Us exists, with Flynn observing the confounding allure of sorrow and the difficulty of holding onto so many conflicting internal and external hurts at once. He approaches this subject matter with a deftness and intensity that can only be matched by that of the music itself.
Since forming in 2014, Fiddlehead–Flynn, drummer Shawn Costa, guitarists Alex Henery and Alex Dow, and bassist Nick Hinsch–have been honing their unique sound, bringing together the energy of hardcore, the anthemic melodies of ‘90s alternative, the unbridled passion of Revolution Summer era emo. For Death Is Nothing To Us, the band again teamed with producer/engineer Chris Teti, and his punchy production captures the spark of Fiddlehead’s live show while doing justice to the massive guitars and undeniable catchiness that makes their music so immensely satisfying. The album’s concise 27 minutes sound like a natural extension of all of the band’s strengths, embracing the more melodic sensibilities of Between The Richness while maintaining the visceral bite of Springtime and Blind. “We knew we wanted to do something a little more aggressive sounding,” explains Henery. “That kind of stuff grounds the band. I think maybe people would have expected us to go cleaner with this LP but I see this as a real mix of the first two.”
The band’s agile sound, whether in their fiery attack or soaring choruses, is glued together by Flynn’s singular tuneful roar. From his seminal early band Have Heart, to Fiddlehead and his many projects in-between (Clear, Wolf Whistle, Free, Sweet Jesus…), the vocalist has earned a reputation as not only one of the most engaging performers in hardcore but also one of the genre’s most thoughtful lyricists. Here, on Death Is Nothing To Us, his lyrics cross into the rarified air where they could stand on their own, without the music. Across the album, Flynn seamlessly interweaves his ruminations on life, death, and all the joy and tragedy in between with references to Roman philosopher Lucretius; the author Jean Améry; other musicians like Bad Brains, Alex G, or Wire (doubling as a nod to the iconic Minor Threat cover of “12XU”); and even titles and lyrics from Fiddlehead’s own back catalogue.
Yet Death Is Nothing To Us goes beyond simply touching on similar themes as Fiddlehead’s previous work. There’s a key distinction here–a sense of clarity, and perhaps even moreso, a sense of defiance. The title makes things clear: this is a statement, a line in the sand, and it’s not about one person, it’s about us. “I saw the title in this poem, ‘On The Nature of Things,’” Flynn explains. “It was rediscovered around The Renaissance, and it helped remind people more of the greatness of life and less about the sadness of death. It’s about not allowing death to rule over life.”
And fittingly, the album is bursting with life. The humanity across Death Is Nothing To Us is palpable in every note, and it’s the kind of art that observes pain with real honesty rather than prescribing a solution for it–and in doing so, inadvertently offers some sense of hopefulness. Mid-album standout “Sullenboy” highlights this dichotomy: on its first verse, Flynn plainly describes trying to muster the energy to fight off another day’s depression; on the second verse, he finds it in the light of his partner and their children, singing, “their day is young and their future’s wide / and I’ll die before I don’t help them rise.” On either side, the band provides one of the most tremendous choruses they’ve ever written, one brimming with vulnerability rather than empty platitudes (“I feel the fear / I can’t repair broken records of family trees / I feel the fear I will repeat”).
Elsewhere on “True Hardcore (II),” Flynn turns his attention to the subculture that’s given him so much, and that he’s given so much to in return. “I was always drawn to punk music because it seemed like it wasn’t this sage on the stage–it’s a weird community that exists without anyone really telling it what to do,” he explains. That world seems to both contrast and compliment Flynn’s daily life as a history teacher in Massachusetts: there’s no stage dives to be found, but the warmth he brings to hardcore still drives his work. “It’s kind of the perfect job to have for an artist’s life,” he says. “The amount of human experience you engage with…I’ve been doing it for over ten years, I’ve worked with over a thousand kids.”
That compassion exudes from “The Woes,” a key track where Flynn speaks directly to the listeners. “To the strange, stuck-in-bed, death-obsessed, Fiddleheads,” he bellows. “I can see you and me suffering silently / we’re visible and we’re seen when life is everything.” Flynn explains, “It acknowledges this paradox of personal suffering vs. communal suffering…you can never truly know the pain of another, but the outside world’s suffering doesn’t negate your own. And you can’t afford to ignore the suffering of others, either.” The song’s conviction exemplifies so much of what makes Fiddlehead a special band: taking these heady, unanswerable questions and wrestling with them in a very earthbound way, all wrapped up in the urgent power of a sub-three minute punk song.
The 12th and final track, “Going To Die,” concludes Death Is Nothing To Us with a rush of major chord riffs that break out of the speakers like a sharp beam of sunlight cracking out of thick clouds. Flynn pays tribute to the people in his life who have passed–family, friends, heroes–and says he’ll see them again. The loss is still there, and it’s not going anywhere, but he reminds himself that there’s still so much more to this life than fixating on the end of it. “See you on the other side / I know I will / But I don’t wanna die.”
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