Wailin Storms unveil third single from The Arsonist!

WAILIN STORMS have been on fire since moving to North Carolina in 2014. Now, the Durham natives are stoking the fire even more with their upcoming fifth album and first for Season of Mist. On the album The Arsonist, the band brings a fiery baptism of gothic rock.

Today, WAILIN STORMS premiere the tense music video for the third and final single from The Arsonist with Treble. With the ghost of David Lynch in the passenger seat, "Dead End" takes a sickening post-punk turn.

"'Dead End' is about seeing yourself after you die", WAILIN STORMS vocalist and guitarist Justin Storms says. "It's the first song on The Arsonist and one of the first that was written for the album. It flowed out of me while I was messing around with my Strymon El Capistan guitar pedal. It sets the tone by jolting you straight into a fever dream that's filled with cryptic messages from beyond."

The Arsonist can be traced back through Wailin Storms’ past.  Recorded by Matt Talbott of Hum in full analog, the album rekindles the band’s roots in raw-to-the-bone blues punk as a heated response to today’s vat of overproduced music and AI slop. By experimenting with swoons of Rhodes organ, “Heart of Mine” recalls the Roadhouse from Twin Peaks. “Some of these songs are more primitive and stripped down, harkening back to the four-track recordings that the band started with”, Storms says. “The recordings contain flaws but remain human in all the right ways. They could be a murder ballad or an old folk song that’s sung around the campfire”. Other early influences soak into the songwriting’s weathered fabric: Flannery O’Conner’s grotesque sensibility, Cormac McCarthy’s unflinching fatalism, Old Regular Baptist hymns. With its sideways gust of riffs and moaning chorus, “The Wind” blows loud enough to wake the entire cemetery.

“Because the heart wants what the body wants and the mind wants what the eyes want”, Storms gravely intones. “Won’t you take me through hell”.

Wailin Storms throw heavy splashes of surrealism into the fires of The Arsonist. “Many of the lyrics draw from the same imagery and emotions conjured by David Lynch, especially his film Wild at Heart”, Storms says. “Dead End” opens the album by taking a harrowing turn of its own when the drum’s rattle leads straight into a waking nightmare. “Calm night / Birds keep plucking out our eyes”.

While shrouded by a doomy and dreamy atmosphere, The Arsonist is inflamed by real life anxieties. Taking inspiration from René Magritte, the album’s cover art, which is heavily shadowed except for a tiny house gone up in flames, was painted by Storms himself. “These songs are steeped in the trials and tribulations of everyday life”, he says. The title track is slowly engulfed by love’s eternal flame. “Like the wind controls the sea”, he croons over the gentle sway of his guitar. “You always had a hold on me”. The thunderous climax surges with such feverish intensity that it threatens to send the night of passion up in smoke.

Amidst the wreckage of The Arsonist, Wailin Storms do find a semblance of peace. “It’s All Dark Now Where Your Eyes Used to Be” ends the album with a ghostly flicker of gothic romance. “I know a place where we can sit and grow old”, Storms offers with grim assurance. A piano tolls like death’s bell as he glimpses up at a church that resembles a skull. “There’s a sliver of hope in coming to terms with death”, he concludes. “Life is temporary and that's where its beauty lies”.

Stream / Buy / Download the album on Bandcamp

Line-up:

Justin Storms – Lead vocals, rhythm guitar

Ben Melton – Lead guitar, backup vocals, Rhodes organ, piano

Steve Stanczyk – Bass

Mark Oates – Drums

Wailin Storms:

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Thank you very much Season of Mist

I am not the owner of the picture, video or original song. Therefore, all rights belong to their respective owners. If you are the owner of the picture, video or any of the songs, write me a private message located on the information page and I will delete the video, photos immediately!!

Photo by © Kent Corley