Built around a thematic core of time’s cruelty and inevitable collapse, Jagalchi’s second full-length, “You Will Know True Loss” album unfolds as a fractured narrative—a meditation on the recursive nature of existence, the breakdown of systems, and the individual’s role in resisting the slow churn of entropy. Released July 1st, 2025 via Friend Club Records, the album expands the band’s sonic and conceptual range, both through lineup changes and a more layered recording process.
The album was tracked at The Vault in Milford, MI in January 2025 with long-time collaborator Jordan Wagel, who also handled mixing throughout spring. The mastering was completed by Blake Bickel at Dynamic Sound Service in Kalamazoo, MI. The band made use of The Vault’s expansive facilities—”complete with a bunk room to stay in so that we could spend a week straight camped out and working,” as one member recalls—allowing the group to dive deeply into experimentation and spontaneous arrangement ideas. That camp-like immersion shaped the record’s unhurried, evolving sound.
“You Will Know True Loss” marks the first release from Jagalchi as a six-piece, with the addition of Jason Kallicragas on baritone guitar. His inclusion also brought in original prose writing and spoken-word elements, which anchor the album’s recurring narrative themes. “I had Jason use [the song titles] as writing prompts to base original prose off of,” the band explained. “We then handed that writing off to a number of friends to read for us with no direction, only the willingness to let me use their readings however I saw fit to sample, manipulate, and overlay on top of our musical structures.”
These spoken pieces appear throughout the record, voiced by different contributors including Jason Brewer, Amanda Rose, Trey Marks, Danielle Gainer, and Russ Wagner. Rather than scripted performance, these were allowed to breathe on their own terms, providing a human, vulnerable contrast to the thick instrumentals.
Certain lines were later pulled and re-integrated vocally—Andrew Kallicragas, the guitarist and composer of all songs, stepped up to deliver motifs across the album, enhancing its circular, layered structure.
The band leans into the theme further with “Chronarratology”, a track title that opens the door to a broader discussion around narrative perception.
“Narratology is the study of narrative structure and the way it affects people’s perception.” – says the band.
“Super interesting to delve into reading about. I suppose by attaching the ‘chron’ prefix I was considering thinking about narrative structure and perception as affected over time or possibly by the idea of alternate timelines. It’s kind of a vague idea that I’m playing around with. My loose concept for the second album so far is a continuation of the narrative elements of the first album, which dealt with people telling stories of the mundane nature of living a life in a ruined future-Earth scenario, but perhaps the second is touching on a more metatextual look at both itself and the first album, as well as the different possibilities for what life can potentially look like in the present and future versions of our world as related to the collective decisions we make as a people.”
From a technical perspective, the band leaned into structured experimentation. Drummer Tyrus Tucker programmed click tracks for each song, helping the band map out intricate sections and easing the editing process. “We of course all dabbled with new effects pedals on our own and in the studio,” they shared. Scott Lehman, handling horns, vocals, and keyboards, expanded his sonic toolkit considerably, adding depth to the record’s already dense atmosphere.
Meanwhile, bassist Nic Leatherman “anchored things by not getting as out of control with the experimentation,” instead using the opportunity to create a more “deep, heavy” bass tone than on their debut.
The five tracks on the record—“Our Wandering, Endless,” “Twisting Strands,” “All the Patience of a Frozen Lake,” “The Gathering Clouds Make Good on Their Threat,” and “Chronarratology”—all contribute to the album’s conceptual spine. “With You Will Know True Loss we wanted to curate a narrative about the uncaring nature of time,” they write. “As we repeat the cycles of our lives, as our history repeats itself over and over, we witness the degrade of our bodies, our societies, our beliefs—and we hurl towards one thing ultimately: entropy.”
This isn’t a bleak record for bleakness’ sake. Rather, it’s framed as a reflection of how time operates—less like a steady forward march, more like waves, rising and falling in unpredictable rhythms. “We feel its progress very differently at various points in our lives,” they observe. “We even acknowledge the possibility that perhaps its flow is not even as linear as we perceive it to be.”
The record closes with “Chronarratology,” a title that itself points to the study of time as narrative. But Jagalchi don’t stop at abstract thought experiments. The band insists on the moral implications of their theme: “We recognize that suffering will be experienced as a matter of course,” they write, “but we still have a responsibility to acknowledge and fight against the atrocities that humanity inflicts upon itself and this world that we live in.”
From title to structure to execution, “You Will Know True Loss” reads like a refusal to let go of that responsibility. The band builds repetition not to lull, but to insist. Each cyclical phrase, whether lyrical or musical, returns with the weight of history behind it.
Entropy might be inevitable—but Jagalchi’s version of loss still calls for presence, resistance, and memory.
