In the ’00s, the great Philadelphia hardcore band Blacklisted developed their own style of nervy, incisive, emotionally articulate hardcore. They had a great run and broke up in 2015, right around the time that they released their final album When People Grow, People Go. Blacklisted reunited in 2023, and they’ve played a few shows since then. In 2021, Blacklisted singer George Hirsch and bassist David Walling also launched an extremely cool new band called Staticlone, and their full-length debut Better Living Through Static Vision finally came out earlier this year. Now, Hirsch and Wailing have started another new band, and they’ve already got an album ready to go.
Colossal Rains has George Hirsch on vocals and guitar and David Walling on guitar. The drummer is Tyler Mullen, who leads the great Philly band Scarab and who also plays drums in Gridiron. The bassist is some guy named Jon-Michael Nean. I don’t know anything about him. In Colossal Rains, they make music that flirts with sludge-metal; a press release names Neurosis, Crowbar, and Katatonia as influences. Early next year, Colossal Rains will release Feral Sorrow, the debut album that they recorded with Turnstile/Title Fight collaborator Will Yip. (Yip has recorded a ton of bands in recent years, and Blacklisted were among his first collaborators.)
Yesterday, Colossal Rains dropped their debut single “Deadlights.” It’s a muddy stomp with lyrics all about isolation. George Hirsch’s voice sounds cool as hell, and he get some serious swagger and melody in through all the gnarls in his voice. This doesn’t sound much like Blacklisted or Staticlone to me. It’s something else.
In a press release, Hirsch says, “I’ve had a poster of Blade Runner above my desk. Looking at the poster, I kept thinking about how badly I wanted to get on one of those ships — climb through one of the engines or into a cargo hold and just be a stowaway headed for a new life. But I knew I couldn’t.” Below, check out the “Deadlights” video, along with the Feral Sorrow tracklist and cover art.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Deadlights”
02 “Agony Bells”
03 “Entombed City”
04 “Pirouettes”
05 “Risley Act”
06 “Silent Trigger”
07 “Flowers On A Landmine”
Feral Sorrow is out 1/23 on Memory Music.
