What would happen if you paired the plaintive simplicity of Philip Labes with rock, a touch of orchestral instruments, and the rustic folkiness of the South?
The answer would be: John Bellows.
If I could describe Certain Demise in one sentence, I might say it’s a mountainous path of an album rooted in the deepest version of reality– With persistent yet melancholy strings and a hint of brass that lay the groundwork for the artist’s gripping verses.
Bellows is a musician from Western Kentucky who has shared the stage with acts such as Angel Olsen, Bonnie Prince Billy, S.G. Goodman, and more. With roots in choral music combined with underground and metal influences, this musician has a sound that’s like no other. So let’s dive into the self-described “Spool of psychedelic, bedroom folk yarns” that followed the artist through his cultural and geographic transition.
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the album ahead of its official release on vinyl and all streaming platforms on Friday, October 6th.
The album begins with “Certain Demise”. Right off the bat, we realize that Bellows isn’t going to sugarcoat things for us. The opening line of the album “Say what you will, but what you say will come back to haunt you” paired with the consistent rhythmic acoustic guitar sets a dark tone. But what seems to start off as a warning quickly turns into a golden pontification.
“The name of your bastion may be the one that holds you captive
In the grip of paralysis, the chalice of the gods”
The spiritual threads in Bellow’s songs could be likened to a folky Sleep Token. And each tune flows into one another like small streams connect to make a river. Track 2 “Only the Loneliest” punches us in the gut with the repercussions of self-absorbedness, and “Evil Eye” continues this idea with themes of a character who never looks back at their own actions.
Upon first listen, Certain Demise might seem like a calming album. If one were to only play each song through once, such as while doing the dishes, you’d likely miss it. This album is not a once-and-done, but rather, something to meditate with or sip slowly.
With lyrics like “What kinds of dreams drift past your window?” and “Living breathing proof deep from the abyss into which I stare…It’s a nice introspective place, you are always welcome here” to accompany the melodic vocals, modal shifts and sweeping emotive lines, gripping is again the feeling we land on. Finally, Certain Demise comes to a close with a brass-heavy, stomping “Dirge” (funeral march).
In Certain Demise you will get a charcuterie board of sounds and ideas- From folk music to the dream pop of the 90’s, to moral quandaries about the gods, the concepts of death of “self”, and how to cultivate inner awareness…
From its title to the gripping lyricism, Certain Demise explores themes of regeneration, perseverance, and confusion. According to the artist, “It’s a concept album about those scary thresholds everyone has to walk through”
“The charm of the human race…is our toiling with each other through our very limited perceptions,” remarked the artist. “There is this constant apocalyptic, mythical play between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ always unraveling. I feel like there is this hope that it’s someone else’s responsibility to put an end to it all. Like when you wake up from a stressful, scary dream and realize everything is actually OK”. -John Bellows
Listen to the album and read our chat with John Bellows below…
What kind of a headspace do your lyrics come from? What are you doing when they come to you?
As an emotionally constipated male in modern society, lyrics are the way I process things happening in life without fear and anger, because there is enough of that to go around already. It’s a receptive state that lasts for hours. I just keep writing until there is an excess of material and then assemble it into order. The stuff that comes to my head is whatever is most prevalent in my psyche at that moment.
What is the Certain Demise that you speak of? Is it the downfall of humanity, a singular person…a bit of both?
It’s about the scary thresholds that we personally or as a civilization have to walk through; the fear of literal and metaphorical death is the strongest collective experience of that. Resistance, division, and negligence can leave people degenerating in a state of self-fabricated delusion and lovelessness. For it all to make a little bit of sense, we gotta live and let die.
Which track came to you first on this album, and how did you begin it?
The first track was “Fly”. The first line is “I just wanna fly” which is an exhausted lyrical trope that I muttered upon initially creating the chord progression. I decided to keep it and quickly dissolve into plaintive, psychedelic poetry. Like, after we get skin deep there is an eternal well of repressed mystery.
You mentioned how your metalhead friends introduced you to cannabis- Did this experience change how you perceived things?
Being from small town Kentucky in the early 90s, Indie/Alternative music of that time was the most impactful differentiator from the normative. In the middle of nowhere, I was being turned on to elements of feminism, anti-authoritarianism, and songs that just sounded weird and lo-fi. That’s what was truly mind-bending! I don’t condone adolescents defaulting to substances in order to shift consciousness. There aren’t sanctioned rites of passage in our Christian American society that can truly flip your lid, so kids are often left to find their own way and that’s what I did.
When was the first moment you realized you were walking through one of those aforementioned thresholds? In other words, what happened?
The literal death of my mother was a big one for me, it’s kind of the scariest thing that can happen. I mourned more in the years leading up to her death than the years following her actual passing because the fear of the experience is sometimes more all-consuming than the reality itself.
If you were to write another concept album, what would the next one be based on?
All of the terrifying things about our socio-political landscape and how I see myself reflected in them, maybe. I think those constructs are on everyone’s mind right now.