SeeYouSpaceCowboy & Nothing,Nowhere Release 'Rhythm and Rapture'

Post hardcore band SeeYouSpaceCowboy have teamed up with Nothing,Nowhere on their brand new single “Rhythm and Rapture”, out now via Pure Noise Records. “Rhythm and Rapture” is a dynamic track that shows a more melodic side to the band’s typically brutal sound – before descending into a mix of guttural screams and shrieking guitars.

“This song was created out of a desire to mix 00’s dancey indie rock like Foals, Cut Off Your Hands, and Bloc Party with a post-hardcore sound,” explains frontwoman Connie Sgarbossa.

“We wanted to create a song in a style we’ve never done before that really reflects the variety of what we grew up listening to. Outside of just nostalgia, wanted to make something that was more focused on being dancey and fun like parts we had all the way back in the Songs For The Firing Squad era, but with less dissonance and more embracing the joy of simplicity. Even though it sounds like a wild departure it has its roots in stuff we have done with SYSC in the past, just expanded and with a different flavor.”

Nothing,Nowhere adds: “I’m honored to have been a part of this track with SYSC. They're one of my favorite bands and are always pushing boundaries.”

“Rhythm and Rapture” serves as a follow up to previous single “Chewing The Scenery”. The songs were produced by Matt Squire (Underoath, SUM 41, The Used) and mark the first new music since SeeYouSpaceCowboy’s second full-length, The Romance Of Affliction (2021).

A brutal musical and emotional assault on the senses, The Romance Of Affliction bristled with the sound of total collapse, of darkness closing in, of trying to escape – through drugs, through death, through whatever means necessary – from the horrors of existence. Not just metaphorically, either.

Two weeks after the band finished recording it, Sgarbossa nearly died from a drug overdose. It was, she admits, a kind of physical manifestation of everything the album’s 13 songs are about.

On The Romance Of Affliction Sgarbossa poured more of herself, her emotions, her feelings, into the songs than she ever had since the band – completed, on this record, by Connie’s brother Ethan (guitar/vocals), Taylor Allen (bass/vocals) and AJ Tartol (drums) – first formed in 2016.

Initially, the idea was for this record to be a response to the band’s 2019 debut, The Correlation Between Entrance And Exit Wounds, a record heavily inspired by the suicide of Sgarbossa’s then-partner Natalie Margaret Garrett, but she soon realized that wasn’t the record she needed to make.

“I didn’t want to write an album that was like ‘Hey, everything’s okay!’” she continues. “A big theme is what it means to be in love while also dealing with all these terrible things. But I got home and after two weeks I almost died of an overdose. And I felt like it was important to let people know that yeah, I’m writing this record, but that this s’s also very real. This is my life.”

That brutal, unflinching honesty isn’t just conveyed with Sgarbossa’s intensely personal lyrics, but through the intensely visceral songs that bring those raw emotions to life. Indeed, the music is a physical manifestation of the existential tug of war played out in these songs – the push and pull between existence and non-existence, the torment of loss, the rush and exhilaration and self-destructive devastation of addiction – and everything in-between. Each song is its own unpredictable, chaotic journey through darkness and pain, all linked together by the universe they’re part of.

The Romance Of Affliction, produced by Knocked Loose guitarist Isaac Hale, stands as the quintessential SeeYouSpaceCowboy record. It’s violent and vicious, harrowing but oddly comforting, bleak yet beautiful. It’s a complex and compelling mix of genres that defies categorization and which truly places the band in a world of their own. And – despite the sorrowful despair that flows through it from beginning to end – it’s also got that trademark sass that has defined the band from the start.

The Romance Of Affliction is out now via Pure Noise Records. Stay tuned for more coming soon from SeeYouSpaceCowboy.

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