Listen: Introducing High Spirits
We want great bands to find success. We pull for them, we defend them, we harp about their misfortunes. But the paradox is that their success — a good thing — rarely feels good for fans. Think of awesome bands that got big: our Mastodon, our Ghost, our Tool, and so on back to Metallica and beyond. Were you not dismayed by their breakthrough? Yes, you were.
And here’s why: Suddenly you share something with people whose whole vibe is rancid. Sure, that’s no big deal — after all, even silly people deserve good music; shit, they need it more than cool people do — but in little increments over hundreds of encounters, it adds up to despair. It’s like one day finding out that you share a birthday with Dahmer. Suddenly, your special day is a little bit about a Milwaukee apartment filled with body parts. Every year. Aw nuts.
However, the point here is that it’s easier to suffer a great band’s new success than to penetrate the hype of a hot band to discover their charms. That is, we can accept our pet bands’ annoying breakthroughs for the reason that at least we had the chance to love the band before it became impossible to give them a fair day in court, before our first listens would be muffled under the chatter of silly people, before distasteful publications were forced to cover the band clumsily and with no context, before our gf’s lamest friend pressed us to check them out. Barf.
In other words, let the masses love your bands; at least you got there in time to love them first. In still other words, never stop scouring for low-profile bands — cuz if you’re too late and they’ve already made a breakthrough, you’ll need way more energy and luck to forge your connection to their awesome jams. And in this spirit, here’s High Spirits, a likely candidate for 2015’s hipster fest mainstages, for kneejerk praise, and for commercials that use their music to sell stuff to the type of people who treat metal like it’s a fart joke at a funeral. Don’t miss your chance. U jam?
High Spirits’ You Are Here came out Tuesday via Hells Headbangers. Get it here and here.
