That Graham Caldwell keeps busy, doesn’t he? Back in October, we premiered ‘Highway Bandits’ from the Ontario native’s Billy is Dead EP (his debut release after retiring the Billy Moon moniker); what we didn’t know at the time was there was an entire debut album on the way in three months, so we’re delighted to tell you Caldwell’s first full-length as Tearing Up is out today. It’s an emotional wrecking ball called Heavy.
If you listen, and you connect, and it hurts, then that’s the point. “I wanted this record to hurt” says Caldwell, the inspiration behind the album stemming from prolonged struggle, trauma and grief. “October 2017 to January of 2020 basically felt like one very, very long year – but even before that, the record was always going to be called Heavy.”
To coincide with the release, we’re premiering the video for ‘Said Something’, the Protomartyr-referencing current single. “Billy Bragg’s ‘Sexuality,’ [The Chicks‘s] ‘Wide Open Spaces,’ Andy Shauf’s ‘My Dear Helen,’ Cindy Lauper’s cover of Joni Mitchell’s ‘Carey’… Even writing this list makes me misty. At the real root of it, I think I just wanted to write music that could make someone cry. Just something that would make a person feel something, realize something, or remember something they thought they’d forgotten. I hope I’ve done that with this record.”
Check out the clip below, then brace yourself and dive into Heavy over on Bandcamp. It is indeed far from easy listening, but it’s a remarkable record all the same.
