Screamo bands ENNUI (Long Island, NY) and APOSTLES OF ERIS (Richmond, VA/Ladysmith, BC) have just announced the release of a split 7-inch vinyl record via Long Island-based label Day Zero Collective, and today we’re thrilled to give you the full listen, along with both bands’ track by track rundown below!
The physical record is available for purchase online domestically through Day Zero Collective and both in the United States and internationally through Zegema Beach Records.
This split 7-inch is Ennui’s highly anticipated sophomore release; following a two song demo cassette released earlier this year for which they have been playing a steady stream of shows on Long Island and NYC in support of.
Ennui features current and former members of Private Mind, Annulment, Detriment, Regulate, Warehouse and Invade.
For Apostles of Eris, this split marks the 4th addition to a marathon of releases in 2022; following their splits with Encarsia, Gossip (members of Senza, Clavel, For Your Health, Losing, Akira, Deadwitch, and Squalor), and a track featured on the Larry Records/Illuminate My Heart Records compilation Fusion Ha!.
Apostles of Eris boasts members of Armagideon Time, In Wolves Clothing, мятеж, Swallow’s Nest, The World That Summer, Altar of Complaints, Majorel & Our Future Is An Absolute Shadow.
Comments John Anthony of ENNUI: “Outside of Ennui, I’ve usually resigned myself to writing about topics and issues external to me–largely so that I could avoid having to acknowledge the more queasy, nauseous, ugly parts of myself. My friends in this band and inner circle have made me feel encouraged and comfortable enough to begin to challenge myself and communicate how I feel in my relationship and connection to my direct lived experiences. I did not want to go into a skramz band having retread familiar waters, and I wanted to punch harder than I ever have with this project.”
Ennui – Beside The Door of Becoming
[John Anthony:] Beside is the most personal song I’ve ever put words to because it’s about acknowledging my upbringing, early experiences, and consequently my estranged family that fleshed me into a nervous, conflicted, overalert adult and what I still feel very oddly about calling or labeling as masculinity. I’m sure that means something very rigid and classical to a lot of people, but I struggle to give it any interest beyond circumstance. Rather, it’s a critique on masculinity “as suicide, set to explode” detailing the sexuality, pressure and violence masculine-adjacent things are often expected, predicted, and typecast to display as a primary reaction to the world.
It’s also about the unguarded nature of admitting an anxious chaos within that framework and being perceived in ways you did not choose:
“endarkened by the jovial nights, I heard a man can walk out if he plays his cards right – and I find your disappointments creeping in, and devising strange law inside of me. And it’s not enough to be handed life, and its unwarranted intricacies, boredoms, and performances. And here I appease a nature that you decided.”
All of which is to say it’s a song of uncertainty, loneliness, and being spoken for. Misunderstood through corporeal illusions–having a disconnected, confused, and severed relationship between your body and your ‘self.’
Ennui – Burning Astronaut
[John Anthony:] This song is a warning about the untamed ego and how destructive it can be in its refusal to be vetted or questioned–which holds the scales and is the exclusive determiner, by who leverages what they have to allow and permit only on their terms and nobody else’s. The potential for cruelty and control sometimes comes from flowery places, and remorse is only a good teacher when it allows for genuine growth from mistakes. Some mistakes are only permissible to be mended through conditional agreements and a long, long road with no guarantee of a resolute conclusion. Some mistakes cannot be reconciled or mended and must be lived with. Otherwise, it is an inauthentic gesture and a means to extend one’s reputation or power within that space to control and feed.
There is nothing more terrifying and unsettling in this world than the personalities and people that are so far deluded into their own zeal that they’ve outright denied responsibility for their abuses, behaviors, actions. It’s worth noting the traits in people that consistently look outside of themselves for why their lives are miserable and terrible and lay it on the shoulders of everyone and anyone else. It’s true that context is vital and people are nuanced and complicated, but it’s important that we hold people accountable and hold ourselves to those same standards lest we slip ourselves–that we invite others to critique and call us in, and with the clarity to be forward about where we may have fallen short.
Though often weighted and messy, I feel it doesn’t have to be and if it is, in doing so we can unmask the poisons and panaceas that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. Social circles, families, and communities thrive when power is shared and spread laterally and fairly. Tread carefully, not everything that smiles is friendly.
Ennui – Rube Goldberg
[John Anthony:] This song originally had an additional subtext: “the long way around.” It’s the first song we ever wrote and it’s probably the most positive song we have. It’s about reclaiming yourself, it’s about conviction and releasing yourself from an otherwise Sisyphean life. I don’t imagine Sisyphus happy, I imagine him to be complacent doing some menial, unnecessary task deemed important by those above him and I imagine him leaving the boulder where it is. Living a life of several completions and risks, losses and gains, with urgency and intent. There’s nothing more dull than a life unexamined, and our underground communities and peer groups aren’t immune to these boredoms either. It’s vital that we push and sharpen each other, and keep each other on our toes if not for any other reason than we are temporary.
Our means to achieve this could be perceived as violent in a lot of ways. This isn’t accepted by everybody, and that’s fine, but I’m not talking about jock shit. I strongly feel that violence can be intelligent and have value, and it’s not something that’s exclusive to any sex or gender and should be taken seriously as one of many universal means to communicate, live, share, and express ourselves in opposition to several imposed safeties and norms that dull our collective spark across all kinds of underground music. Life is fleeting. We’re only here for a short while and we have gotten far too used to living behind other people’s laws and values. It’s not license to hurt, rather the urge to feel and grow in thresholds. I think there is a ferocity and gentleness in
many people, and both should be nurtured. Collectively, we’re nuanced. We’re all walking through a very strange, very disjointed world and I think that urge, release, and catharsis supersedes all of that. We shouldn’t be afraid of that, we should feel content having built a relationship between our need to create, our bodies, and our intellect.
Apostles of Eris – Anxieties From the Material Realm
[Jesse Mowery:] This song is dedicated to the struggle of being a working/lower class citizen, most specifically in the United States, as that’s the experience I know. We live in a time when over half of the country is living paycheck to paycheck while corporate profits are through the roof. While talks of being better towards our own mental health is on the rise, the constant threat of homelessness and the anxieties/depression/ptsd that comes with it are often left out of the discussion. I personally am struggling with trying to support myself and my partner, who has a chronic pain disorder, plus our elderly animals, all while juggling music projects that more often take away from my income rather than add to it. The fact that I can find the time to pursue my art is in itself a privilege, and I’m very thankful to have a partner who supports it, but there are many days where I can’t help but feel like I need to throw it all away in order to work more to try and make more money. But I know if I did my mental state would hit new lows that could result in self harm or worse.The push for individualism in the name of capital gain is only to lay the blame on the people themselves rather than those in control of the means of production, creating such heinous ideas such as “grind” culture to be proud of our exploitation.
Musically the feel of the song is heavily inspired by the …who calls so loud song “Assume the Power Focus”. I love the sound of country-esque guitar and wanted to try and forge it in my own music without coming off as cheesy or unnecessary. I used a lot of bends to simulate the sound of a pedal steel guitar without using a slide. When approached about this split I already had other songs fully written that could’ve filled the space, but this popped into existence not long after and I figured it was a good stand alone song that has most of the elements of our sound in one package. Many thanks to Ennui for approaching us to do this, as with the timing and such I’m not sure if the song would’ve come out the same otherwise.
