(Cover art by Dillon Bauman)
Careful Gaze has had a busy year and they're ending it with a bang. Despite the crushing uncertainty that comes attached to every day since the middle of March, the Minneapolis post-hardcore trio has found unique ways to create and release new music — three standalone singles, a fourth song tied in to a novella that will see yearly updates, a Christmas cover, and now a six-song EP to give 2020 the send-off that it deserves.
As long as the pandemic rages on (which seems to be at least for the next 8-10 months), bands seem to be drawn towards what might be described as "stopgap" releases — shorter batches of songs that they can put together remotely and use as a way to retain the momentum they built pre-COVID with touring and recording. Careful Gaze is defying those assumptions with LOUD HOWLS THE ETERNAL WOLF! "We knew we wanted to end the year out with something that felt larger, more cinematic, and more important together," said Gabe Reasoner, the band's vocalist and primary lyricist. The new EP continues the thematic and emotional motifs established on last year's debut You Too Will Rest, while still finding room to evolve. The lyrics are still a whirlwind of politics, mental health, and religion, and the arrangements are somehow even more head-spinning.
The concept of the EP started with a scene in Blade Runner during which the replicant Roy Batty paraphrases part of William Blake's 1793 poem America a Prophecy. Reasoner was swept down a rabbit hole of research about the work, eventually finding inspiration in the segment that gives the EP it's title. "The more I looked into it, the more I was struck with how something written so long ago could be so relevant to this society [and] this year," he said. "[The EP] carries many themes of self-sabotage and destruction...To us, that title represents a warning that action yields consequence — especially repeated, shitty action."
LOUD HOWLS THE ETERNAL WOLF! didn't start coming together until the spring of this year, following the departure of longtime drummer Jason Neymeyer. The new three-piece lineup naturally led to some experimentation with freshly-written material, finding inspiration in "post rock and adjacent genres." It's immediately apparent to anyone listening to LOUD HOWLS that the band is shooting for the stars, trying to "[make] things sound as large as possible when they get big." This pursuit of piercing grandiosity results in many highlights, most notably a collaboration with vocalist Arrold Walton of ROT on "Sunday Special."
Careful Gaze is not new to the realm of politically-inspired music, but "Sunday Special" is possibly their most pointed (and heaviest) song, taking direct aim at "some people and groups' response to try to 'pray away' racism without addressing the actual root issues, or co-opt [this summer's anti-racism/Black Lives Matters protests] for their own gain and publicity." It was written in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder at the hand of Minneapolis cops and seeing the incessant abuses committed against protesters over the course of the ensuing months. Reasoner added, "I'm not going to tell people they can't pray or that faith won't do anything, if that's their belief, even if that's not my way of going about things, but it needs to be paired with action and assistance, not judgement or mockery." As it says in the book of James, "faith apart from works is dead."
The band's lyrical approach may be familiar, but LOUD HOWLS does have one new surprise. "JPTR" was initially written by guitarist/bassist Aslan Denbow. "The song began as a set of lyrics Aslan wrote, partially inspired by Orphic hymns and...a family member's passing and processing everything," Reasoner said. The duo fleshed the song out during the initial lockdown and turned it into one of the most lively and exciting pieces in Careful Gaze's short yet swiftly growing discography.
It feels like much of LOUD HOWLS dwells in the valley of shadow of death, a place where the dawn has yet to come. Reasoner summed up the EP as being about his belief that "humans are most of the cause for our own downfall and undoings." They revel in the darkness, but also find a way out through the other side.
To celebrate the EP's release, and to offer a taste of what so many people miss dearly, Careful Gaze filmed a live play-through of LOUD HOWLS with TVRBO KVLT. Specifically designed to evoke what should have been an in-person show, it's "the closest we will get to the raw energy and emotion of playing these songs live for who knows how long at this point," in Reasoner's words. Members of The Atlantis Theorem fleshed out the lineup for an extra-special tribute to what should have been, giving the EP what it deserves in the process.
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