With the 2017 release of their debut LP To Deaf & Day, Glaare garnered both critical praise and swift ascent to their place in the LA darkwave pantheon. The record’s split release between a boutique domestic label and believed European indie label, Weyrd Son, won Glaare a devoted following both at home and internationally.
Glaare returns with their sophomore full-length album Your Hellbound Heart out via Weyrd Son Records.
When it comes to explanations for what exactly Glaare has done this time around, we need not look much further than the name of the album itself. Your Hellbound Heart, just like the book it’s named after, is the embodiment of pleasure granted to someone after a time of extreme torture.
When we asked them about what inspired this last record of theirs here’s what they told us
“The band was in peril both personally and interpersonally and that shaped the direction.”
Its relation to the 80s classic movie Helllraiser, as well as countless other nostalgic stories involving familiar metaphors of life journeys, is most certainly not by accident either.
Don’t be fooled by its synth heavy dance introduction. Behind the relentless party your face off, drive faster ‘till you crash tracks is anything but a story about a good time. This album is the perfect representation of what would have been running through Sarah Conner’s head while she did chin-ups in the looney bin. Waiting for the day that she gets her revenge on a world that’s gaslighting her.
In fact, one of the songs is none other than “T2”in honor of the apocalyptic cautionary tale. The process for these California natives has always been no process at all. They firmly believe in letting the album write itself and just submit to what it wants as though it is an entity in and of itself that demands from its members the way a dictator would.
If their first album To Deaf and Day was the aftermath of when your heart breaks, then its successor is the aftermath of when your mind breaks.
They call the list of their musical heroes ‘obvious’ as it includes giants such as Bowie, Prince, Kate Bush, Sade. But also DJ Screw.
Writing music is also somewhat of an ‘obvious’ process for them as they don’t really “have a process conventionally. If I hear something I’ll sit down behind some synthesizers and a DAW.”
While they’re not sure about what the future holds for them – “I’m not sure any of us know. Sort of in the purgatory of government and public reaction + rejection. Suspended disbelief” – as they put it, they know exactly what inspires their style:
“Karl Marx & cognitive dissonance”
