The gloom that has settled over Northern California’s hardcore fringes for the past three decades can be traced directly to WILL HAVEN.
Today, Minus Head Records releases No Stars To Guide Me: 30 Years Of WHVN, a gatefold vinyl artifact that doesn’t bother with hollow nostalgia. It’s a direct line through three decades of tension and catharsis, from the earliest spasms of Sacramento’s darker corners to the more recent, fully weaponized incarnations.
Nothing here is pretty. “Choke” drags those old wounds back into the light, “Fresno” grinds them down to bone, and a freshly mixed “Carpe Diem” (by Eric Stenman) snarls with renewed menace. From “I’ve Seen My Fate” and “Sammy Davis Jr’s One Good Eye” to “When The Walls Close In” and “Soul Leach,” every selection documents WILL HAVEN’s evolving strain of bleak heaviness.
The gate swings forward into “Hewed With The Brand” and “No Stars To Guide Me,” reaffirming that none of their darkness has dissipated.
The new track “KIRE” proves there’s no comfortable plateau in their world. Produced by Joe Johnston and WILL HAVEN, mixed and mastered by Eric Stenman, it isn’t content with old victories.
Instead, it solidifies their refusal to mellow or appease. Acclaimed last year for VII, WILL HAVEN keep pushing toward the edges.
Earlier incarnations spawned members who forged paths in FAR and CROSSES, but WILL HAVEN’s own route never softened and never will. There’s no attempt at pandering, no shallow glances in the rearview.
This record isn’t a memoir; it’s an active crime scene, still pumping dread and proving that their darkness has always had, and still has, urgent purpose.
WILL HAVEN’s seventh LP, VII was released in the Summer of 2023 to widespread praise from media and fans alike. Recorded and engineered by Joe Johnston at Pus Cavern (Deftones, Dance Gavin Dance, Hoods), produced and mixed by Joe Johnston and WILL HAVEN, and mastered by Alan Douches at West West Side Music, VII surges with some of the band’s heaviest and darkest material to date, taking longtime fans back to their earliest records, while expanding on the atmospheric and immersive qualities of the band’s sound. The band toured the West and East Coasts of the US including sets at Crucialfest, Furnace Fest, and more, and toured across the UK and parts of Europe in support of the record.
