Bay Area trio Sour Widows share “Staring Into Heaven/Shining” the entrancing new single and album closer from their recently announced debut record Revival Of A Friend, out June 28th on Exploding In Sound Records.
The song comes with a video directed by Henry Kinder that was shot across Golden Gate Park and Ocean Beach in San Francisco and Thee Stork Club in Oakland.
“After my mom passed in late June of 2021, I went on a trip in August of that year in an attempt to put physical distance between myself and the pain of what I had just experienced. I was searching for relief wherever I thought I could find it; ultimately, that trip taught me that grief cannot be outrun,” Susanna Thomson explains. “‘Staring Into Heaven/Shining’ is a confessional song, written at a time when I was desperate to gain control over my life through ideas I had about grieving the ‘right’ way. As I tried and failed to reconcile feelings of regret and unanswerable questions, it became clearer to me that all I can do is choose to simply observe the experience of grief. The lyrics are searching, but come to their natural end in a place without resolution; it wasn’t until after finishing the song that I realized there can be hope in accepting that there are things we cannot know about death.”
Inspired by the folk singing of their youth, the grit and grace of Joni Mitchell, the slowly spiraling dazzle of Duster and Bedhead, and the steady angularity and sudden snarl of Slint, Revival of a Friend fully recognizes the arbitrary cruelty of individual existence and finds that some of the best ways beyond it are to share harmonies, a tangle of electric guitars, or a song that simply imagines hope somewhere on the other side. Methodically built over many years, the album is a poignant and gripping record about the pain of growing up and getting on with it.
Sour Widows have expanded their previously announced summer tour dates to include a fall run with youbet. Tickets for the fall dates go on sale Friday 5/10 at 10am ET via sourwidows.com
Tour Dates:
6/2: San Francisco, CA – Union Street Festival
6/16: Davis, CA – Davis Music Festival
6/20: San Diego, CA – Voodoo Room ^
6/21: Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room ^
7/10: Seattle, WA – Sunset Tavern
7/11: Portland, OR – Mississippi Studios
7/13: San Francisco, CA – The Independent
7/26: Los Angeles, CA – Zebulon
9/9: Atlanta, GA – 529 Club *
9/10: Nashville, TN – DRKMTTR *
9/11: Asheville, NC – Eulogy *
9/12: Washington, DC – Comet Ping Pong *
9/13: Philadelphia, PA – Johnny Brenda’s *
^ w/ Teethe
* w/ youbet
