Sour Widows Share Video for New Single 'Bathroom Stall'

Bay Area trio Sour Widows have shared a video for their new single "Bathroom Stall," the second single from their upcoming EP Crossing Over, available for pre-order now and due April 23rd via Exploding in Sound. FLOOD Magazine, who premiered the video today is saying the song "flirts with the kinds of emotional swells that make Big Thief a band of the moment, songwriter Maia Sinaiko going so far as to match that group's heavy, experiential lyricism."

Of the song, the band's Maia Sinaiko (they/them) says: "This song is about a relationship I had with someone who struggled with addiction, who very tragically passed away three years ago while we were together. It's about some moments we shared, and how it feels to walk around carrying that person and those experiences with me while the world stays normal. I wrote the song because I wanted to preserve and document what happened to me, to write out the scary stuff and just let it sit there forever. I think it's funny that it's called 'Bathroom Stall' and that it has that image in it; the song goes from heavy and dark to ordinary and totally pedestrian in a sentence, which feels absurd. And that's kind of what it's like to grieve. That's kind of what's hard to explain about grief, how absurd it is. Part of you goes to a different planet and part of you stays walking around like an alien on Earth, going to the bathroom and looking at the moon and s."

With Crossing Over, Sour Widows discover a new intensity by turning inward. The band dials back some of the volume that drove their self-titled 2020 debut EP to make space for themes of self-reflection and painful change that cut through with sharpened clarity. The luminous vocal harmonies, complex guitar interplay, and understated drumming that have been at the core of the band's sound remain foundational; but these four songs reach deeper, all the more stirring in their subtlety.

Sour Widows was formed in 2017 by Maia Sinaiko (they/them), Susanna Thomson (she/her), and Max Edelman (he/him). All three had been close since meeting in various phases of childhood, and when they found themselves living in the same area, making music together came naturally. With a musical connection that was an extension of their longtime friendship, the band began fine-tuning a sound that swung from gently glowing harmonizing to energetic bursts of feedback-laced catharsis. After the release of their self-titled EP in February of 2020, the plan was to continue touring and start work on a full-length album. As it did with so many others, the global pandemic abruptly changed plans for Sour Widows. Rather than slow momentum indefinitely while waiting to safely get into a studio, the band decided to work remotely recording new material themselves.

The title track is perhaps the strongest marker of the distinct evolution in sound throughout Crossing Over. The song slowly expands from a subdued two-chord guitar progression into a dynamic, breathing organism, building tension as it winds through an unconventional song structure with aching lyrics centered around a long-distance relationship. It's a song about the weight of love that sprawls out with the loneliness of an endless highway. Susanna and Maia worked on the song while quarantining together, and the protracted arrangement embodies both the frustrations of physical distance expressed in the lyrics and the strange new ways time felt in 2020.

Sour Widows' music already drew as equally on sharpness as it did tenderness, but the deliberately spare atmosphere of Crossing Over enhances both. Tempos slow and the instrumentation softens while anxiety and grief crackle through these deceptively opulent songs. The EP represents a new phase of Sour Widows' artistry, and points to further growth with their soon-to-follow full-length debut. The unique form of this EP documents the band discovering a voice which derives its translucent power from restraint and intentionality.

Listen here:

Photo Credit: Ginger Fierstein

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