Los Angeles based band Goliathan has shared a new single today, which you can hear only at Ghost Cult! The new song “If It Could Cry, We Would Surely Drown In Its Tears’ comes from their forthcoming new EP album Artifact, releasing on October 30th. You could say the music on Artifact has had a circular journey, as the material was written and mostly recorded around 2006 as the band underwent changes where life got in the way of making art, until now. Re-animated back to life in time for Halloween, the tracks were remixed by Toshi Kasai (Melvins, Red Sparowes, Helmet), and mastered by Gene Grimaldi (Failure, Fantômas). For the cover art (see above), the band also commissioned a new original painting by Jack Elizabeth. The set will be released digitally and on limited-edition 10-inch vinyl on Oct. 30., the vinyl featuring the first two tracks, with “Laid To Waste” available as a digital exclusive. Epic in scope, these songs ache with emotion, shifting from doom-laden riffs, ominous melodic changes, but enough chill moments to blend with their shade in order bring the listener to another plane. More to come from this band as they have most of their next album already written! Jam out to the track now and pre-order at the link below.
Guitarist & co-founder Kevin Cogill commented:
These songs were recorded in 2006 in a rehearsal space called Musician’s Choice in Culver City. We were all living together, just a few blocks away, so one day we wheeled a boxed-up gear rack across Venice Boulevard which had my Macintosh G4 tower in it, mounted sideways above a ProTools interface, with a mixer on top. I vividly remember the cars swerving and honking at us as we cut lanes with a giant road case, and I remember nervously rushing the rig past the front desk at the studio, hoping they didn’t catch on to the ruse designed to avoid the “recording surcharge” we wouldn’t have been able to afford.
The release of Artifact wasn’t really planned. I have to admit with a fair amount of mischievous guilt that it was something of a surprise to everyone, even the band, and I’m relieved Shawn didn’t fire me over the stunt. We’ve known each other since we were 4 or 5 though, and I’d like to think I know what he would and wouldn’t approve of, with some confidence. After so many years, the time finally felt right for so many little reasons, some circumstantial and some personal. It started with neurotic pandemic housecleaning which unearthed the original ProTools sessions.
Familial love is a part of it. This first incarnation of the band featured Shawn’s wife April and her brother Bob; We all grew up together in Philadelphia and played and toured as a crust punk band, but never had any real physical evidence of its evolution into Goliathan—until now. April and Shawn just had a baby the other day, and I thought it would make a nice gift for everyone in honor of our new son / nephew.
Another factor was connecting with Toshi Kasai this year, who blessed us with these new mixes. The Melvins records he did have been in heavy rotation all summer, and I’ve also been obsessed with his work on the Anywhere album since it came out back in 2012. Perhaps we could have waited until we were ready to record new material and gambled on him still being available, but everything was so uncertain, and these sessions were ready to go.
But the biggest and most obvious reason we’re releasing Artifact now is that 2020 is fucked. Shawn and I have our third album mostly written, but getting a band together to work out the last 15 percent or so in a live setting (like we’ve always done) is challenging right now, as is the idea of recording. Even if we did find a way, the idea of touring new material is obviously a nonstarter for the time being. At least with putting out Artifact, the year go to waste completely.
“If It Could Cry” was truly a forgotten song. Neither Shawn nor I remember how to play the parts or even who played which riffs. If I recall correctly, Shawn didn’t even like this song when he first wrote it. I just couldn’t let go of its distinct imperfections though, like the rattle-y acoustic section in the middle, played on a broken guitar, and the rushing of the drums in the crescendo that it builds to afterward. Just after the ten-minute mark, the whole thing almost goes completely off the rails. Over the years, I’ve come to deeply appreciate that precarious, risky moment, when you’re chasing and trying to capture a song you’re barely keeping up with. Maybe if we’d written and recorded this song this year, with all the means we now have at our disposal, we would have done another take or three. But that day at Musician’s Choice, it had to be good enough as-is because we were breaking all the rules and racing a clock. These are relics of a distinct, distant time now—to “fix” them would be to ruin them.
Pre-order link: https://goliathan.bandcamp.com/album/artifact
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