Painted Shrines Premiere New Song 'Not So Bad'

Painted Shrines, the new collaboration between Jeremy Earl of Woods and Glenn Donaldson of Skygreen Leopards, premiere their new song "Not So Bad" today via the Talkhouse. In an accompanying essay, Donaldson talks about writing the song and its message of self-acceptance and liberating yourself from negativity: "We need other people to survive, but it's ok to reject the negative people in your life and move on... Find some other good people to accept you, love you and try to make your own life somewhere." Listen to "Not So Bad" below.

"Not So Bad" appears on Painted Shrines' debut record Heaven and Holy - praised by Aquarium Drunkard as "a comforting, hazy and even uplifting collection of songs" - due out March 5 on Woodsist Records, alongside the previously released tracks "Gone" and "Heaven and Holy." Heaven and Holy is available for pre-order NOW.

Jeremy Earl (Woods) & Glenn Donaldson (Skygreen Leopards, The Reds, Pinks & Purples) met sometime in the mid-aughts and bonded over a love of tambourines and DIY sounds. They have shared many stages since, and their first serious collaboration was on the 2011 Woods album Sun & Shade. Around 2018, Earl was restless in upstate NY and accepted an invite to record in Donaldson's studio in an undisclosed rural coastal town in Northern California. In a week they emerged with nearly an album's worth of hazy folk-rock and psych-pop with touches of more outré lo-fi noise. Jeff Moller (The Papercuts) added bass, and they put the finishing touches on during quarantine. Heaven and Holy ebbs and flows like coastal fog between songs and dreamy instrumentals splitting the difference between The Clean's Unknown Country and The Byrds' Fifth Dimension.

Listen to "Not So Bad" here: