VIDEO PREMIERE: Devlin and the Harm Embark on a Sprawling Psychedelic Rock Journey with “Kingdom Comes”

“So many tragedies seemed to shape this record. In the middle of our second recording session, Michael Nussbaum finished his drum parts and went on a paragliding trip, during which he had a near-fatal 100-foot fall that broke his back. My Dad suffered from kidney failure and was put on dialysis, the world descended into a parade of idiocy, and just as we were finishing the record, my Dad was put on a ventilator, was rushed to the ICU, miraculously recovered, and just as it looked like he’d be coming home, he passed away.”

Finding hope in personal and cultural tragedies has always shaped Devlin McCluskey’s work. His previous band, The Dead Ships, was one of the most electrifying to emerge from the LA garage rock scene in the last decade. Their sprawling songs melded McCluskey’s grief over his best friend’s suicide with fortuitous visions of the rise of fascism in America. Named LA’s best band by LA Weekly, and hailed by NPR as the new sound of West Coast anthems, they became a must-see live act even before their explosive Coachella performances.

Now, Devlin is venturing into new sonic territory, teaming with Grammy-nominated mixer/producer Alex Newport (Death Cab For Cutie, Bloc Party, At The Drive-In), drummer Michael Nussbaum, and a local supergroup to form Devlin and The Harm. Together they fuse McCluskey’s raw energy, melodic hooks, and reflections on sobriety, love, death, and a fractured America, with Newport’s vintage studio mastery & orchestral arrangements. The band’s self-titled album is a bold symphonic sound that pushes the boundaries of 70s rock, garage soul, and indie baroque pop, while exploring the connection between personal and cultural battles, and showcasing the intensity that gave The Dead Ships their rep as one of the best bands on the West Coast.

The album is due out May 22nd (PRE-SAVE).

Today, Glide is offering an exclusive premiere of the standout track “Kingdom Comes” along with its accompanying music video. The tune is a smoky 60s march that explodes into a swirl of eastern guitar lines, spaghetti western strings, Spanish horns, McCluskey’s howls, and Claire McKeown’s haunting soprano siren call. With its cinematic vibe and tragic undertow, the song rocks and rolls with cool abandon and echoey crooning to haunt and enchant the listener. There is a soaring power to the music that seems to expand across a rich sonic landscape, loaded with fuzzy guitar swells, eerie vocals, exotic strings, and drums that hit like thunder before the final burst and ultimate acoustic come-down from this wild trip.

Devlin McCluskey describes the inspiration behind the tune and the video:

“I hate to admit it but this song was a turning point for me. My last band faded away, I’d lost touch with my friends, we were in this new dark era of American Society, and I just felt like if I didn’t squeeze with all my might I’d float off into the abyss. I’d tried to write songs in the past that explore themes of sobriety, white knuckling, shame, failed relationships, and sort of battling personal demons while society crumbles in the background, but I never quite found the sound that makes me feel the depth of all those things. I wasn’t looking to start a band, but Kingdom Comes became a guiding light for the kind of music I wanted to make. It’s the first song I send to anyone I hope to work with, it was the song that made Alex Newport want to produce the album, and I don’t know if it’s the best thing I’ve ever written but it’s certainly the first song I want to listen to on these dark cloudy days.”

I’ve been a video editor for as long as I’ve been making music, and have messed around with crude animations and stop motion for years. The idea for the video came from wanting to capture the dark nostalgia and cinematic feel of the song, and try to allude to feelings of the current reactionary global hellscape. But I didn’t have the resources to shoot something grandiose.

I’ve been slowly working on it for three years, photoshopping and layering different stock images shot by shot. And in that time, it became very important to me not to use any AI. I taught myself some basic blender and found all sorts of little tricks to make these rudimentary animations a bit more cinematic.

I doubt the story or concepts make sense to anyone but me, but i suppose i hope it makes some emotional sense to the right people, or at the very least you dig the style and tone of a black/white/red and orange nightmare.

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