Brooklyn-based prog-punk-rockers SISTER HELEN have just released their latest single, “Kaross Music,” off of their forthcoming farewell LP. The track premiered originally via New Noise Magazine where the band shared the thoughts:
“‘Kaross Music’ is the epic of the album. The song originated from a demo Chris made in 2012 called ‘Practice’, and was developed throughout 2015 to fit on the album. It combines dancey rock sections with prog-metal brutality.
Lyrically, it alludes to the many different identities that reside within one person, and how those identities become at odds when a person is in crisis.
In the context of the two characters in the album, ‘Kaross Music’ is sung from the perspective of the ‘Finest Mind’, observing how the ‘Friend’, in the throes of a breakdown, cannot maintain the brave face they show to the world, nor can they contain the inner turmoil that they’ve kept at bay. The first verse opens with what is possibly the most explicit statement of helplessness on the album: ‘I get too scared to look at faces/it’s alright, it’s alright/I think “what am I gonna say to them?/ ‘it’s alright, it’s alright?’
The middle section of the song ends with the Finest Mind’s vow, ‘when the night is cold and the wind is sharp, hold together/I am at your side, I am at your side, I am at your side’ and then finally the refrain poses a question that restates their disbelief and helplessness ‘you wear these skins against the world/how do you keep them in one piece?/you wear these skins against your skin/how are you keeping in one piece?”
