Sour Widows Break Down Debut Album Revival of a Friend Track by Track: Exclusive

The post Sour Widows Break Down Debut Album Revival of a Friend Track by Track: Exclusive appeared first on Consequence .

Track by Track sees artists guide readers through each song on their newest release. Today, rising indie rockers Sour Widows break down their dazzling debut album, Revival of a Friend.

Listening to Sour Widows’ debut album, Revival of a Friend , it’s immediately apparent just how cathartic the songs are for the band. Mournful melodies, building dynamics, and guitar licks that somehow communicate extremely specific emotions combine for a listen that, even without context, carries the feeling of the sun finally peaking out from behind miles and miles of clouds.

But then, of course, there is the context, the lived experiences of songwriters Susanna Thomson and Maia Sinaiko that informed the work.

“When we started playing together again that fall after being on hiatus for several months because of my mom’s illness, I was feeling easily overwhelmed by most things, and playing and writing were very difficult,” Thomson tells Consequence . “Monumental loss creates a very clear divide between those in your life who can understand the depth of that kind of pain and those who can’t.”

The 10 tracks of Revival of a Friend exist deep within that indescribable pain; it’s a remarkable product of hardship, loss, and all of the confusion that comes with such experiences. Among other tragedies the band faced leading up to the record, Thomson’s mother passed from a rare form of cancer, and Sinaiko lost their partner to an accidental overdose. It was, understandably, an incredibly difficult period, one that they can only look back at with a melancholic, knowing chuckle, wondering how they kept pushing on.

But push on they did, and to wondrous, honest results.

“All I could do was make music alone in my room. Day to day life was constant cycling through memories of places, feelings, and experiences of which I was now the sole keeper,” Sinaiko explains. “The endlessness of grief supersedes the normal passage of time, and the people we lose remain in places we can never go back to. It’s magic and terrible all at once. That paradox is crucial to this album thematically and sonically. You need to show the light and the dark together to see the full scope of our music.”

Ultimately, Revival of a Friend is a powerfully bold statement for a band to make their introduction with, one that asks listeners to fully feel the paradox of grief. What a way to say hello.

Stream Sour Widows’ Revival of a Friend below, and read on for Susanna Thomson and Maia Sinaiko’s Track by Track breakdown.

“Big Dogs”:

Maia Sinaiko: I wrote this song after meeting my friend’s huge Great Danes, Albert and Henry. They were very interesting and strange dogs; despite their size they were afraid of everything. It felt very special whenever they came over to ask for a pet. I loved them.

“Revival”:

MS: Timmy [Stabler] and Max [Edelman], our bassist and drummer, originated this song during a practice where we were playing “Big Dogs.” I added a freeze pedal and thought the two songs flowed perfectly together. In the studio, our producer Maryam Qudus added a lot of layers of synths, and we threw heavily affected vocals on top to create a dreamy atmosphere. We pulled from sonic references including Joe Hisaishi’s scores from films such as Porco Rosso , Princess Mononoke , and Kiki’s Delivery Service . We named it “Revival” as a reference to the title of our album and because it flowed continuously out of “Big Dogs.”

“Witness”:

Susanna Thomson: This is the first song we finished since I lost my mom in June 2021. When we started playing together again that fall after being on hiatus for several months because of my mom’s illness, I was feeling easily overwhelmed by most things, and playing and writing were very difficult. Returning to this existing instrumental we had written together before everything in my life changed felt comforting and supportive. Monumental loss creates a very clear divide between those in your life who can understand the depth of that kind of pain and those who can’t. “Witness” speaks to that experience.

“I-90”:

MS: This song was written shortly after the death of my partner from an overdose in 2017, when all I could do was make music alone in my room. Day to day life was constant cycling through memories of places, feelings, and experiences of which I was now the sole keeper. I found that the most mundane memories — driving in my partner’s car, the rural midwest landscapes of my college town — acted as vivid portals into what was now an irrevocable part of my life. The endlessness of grief supersedes the normal passage of time, and the people we lose remain in places we can never go back to. It’s magic and terrible all at once. That paradox is crucial to this album thematically and sonically. You need to show the light and the dark together to see the full scope of our music.

“Initiation”:

ST: I started working on this song the week before my mom died — it’s the last song of mine she got to hear. I didn’t revisit it again until about a year after she passed, when I started to write lyrics following a trip my family and I took to spread her ashes in the mountains; I wanted to capture the feeling of that experience and sing about it to her. The title is a reference to something one of my mom’s oldest teacher’s said to me a few months after she died, which is that losing a parent is an initiation into true adulthood.

“Gold Thread”:

ST: This song is the centerpiece of the album — it’s the only song we tracked live in one take without any overdubbing, and it was improvised. Although we multi-tracked most of the songs on this record, we feel “Gold Thread” captures the heartbeat of this set of songs by reflecting the connection and friendship that is the foundation of this project. “Gold Thread” is meant to be a meditation, and is of course directly tied to “Initiation.” In my mind, I’ve always called the chord that this song starts and finishes on an “angel chord” because of the sound of the voicing and the way it has notes that repeat within it in octaves. My mom always said that there is a gold thread that connects us across space and time to those we love.

“Cherish”:

MS: “Cherish” is a plea for love disguised as a curse against the world. I started struggling with my mental health in my late teens, and the loss of my partner at age 21 — as well as the tumult of our relationship — exacerbated those issues. I was a very angry person, and I went through several years of being emotionally volatile. Both wanting to connect and be seen while being enraged at the state of my life, I would lash out just to make contact with someone, even if that contact was hurtful. To cherish something is to love it for all that it is, which is all I really wanted at that time — to be held and cared for even though I was not an easy person to be around for a while. This song really represents a younger version of me that was going through a lot of learning 0f how to be in a world that was always changing when I wanted things to stay the same.

“FTGE”:

MS: When I originally wrote “Cherish,” I imagined it as part of a musical suite which included “FTGE” as the final part. After revising “Cherish” for the album, we ended up taking it apart and rearranging it a bit. But I still felt like “FTGE” was lyrically a really important part of the song. We ended up including it as a live guitar and vocal take, one of the only songs we recorded live on the album. If you listen very closely, you’ll hear Susanna’s voice whispering along with the lyrics, which I love; it’s so subtle but effective and sounds like a voice within a voice. It’s a very dark, introspective song and I was really inspired by the recording process and sound of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way.”

“Shadow of a Dove”:

ST: “Shadow of a Dove” is a song about gaining clarity, and the power that can be reclaimed in the aftermath of a harmful experience by seeing it for what it is. Understanding the truth of a negative formative relationship or moment in time is the truest form of closure and can only be given to you by yourself. This is a song I wrote for my teenage self, to complete a pattern of experiences that shaped those years of my life.

“Staring into Heaven/Shining”:

ST: The sprawling nature of this song reflects the searching feeling I was left with after the initial shock of my mom’s death passed, and I was attempting to integrate myself back into the reality of my life. I went on a trip to see a friend to try to gain a little perspective and escape the pain, and I quickly learned that such a thing is impossible. It’s a confessional song that attempts to resolve the questions and regrets that accompany my loss, but ultimately the only truth it uncovers is that all I can do is observe the experience of grief and how it changes in me over time.

Sour Widows Break Down Debut Album Revival of a Friend Track by Track: Exclusive
Jonah Krueger