SENSES FAIL have today dropped the brilliant new single “Death By Water” via Pure Noise records. The song, which features Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills, is the band’s first new music offering since 2018.
Speaking on the themes and origin of their latest release, Buddy Nielsen comments: “The song is named after a section of the poem Wasteland by T.S. Elliot and pulls references from the section. Personally, it is about the struggle of entering the dark night of the soul with regard to becoming a father. In many traditions, there is anecdote and mythology pertaining to the journey of ego death or death and rebirth of a certain time in one’s life.
When you become a parent your single self dies and you become eternally linked to life, there is a letting go of the person you once were to become a parent. There was a level of loss I felt having to let go of who I was previously and step into a role that I didn’t feel fully comfortable in. I was blindly jumping into the unknown and this is what this song talks about. ‘Death by water’ can have the inverse motif of birth and cleansing. When someone is baptized in Christianity they are reborn in the eye of God. I use the theme of death by water as a rebirth in the eye of ‘God’; God being my child, and me being reborn as their parent”.
Expanding on the track’s imagery Nielsen adds: “This song represents the descent into the underworld where I am to meet with the soul of my departed grandmother. The entrance into the underworld is always marked by a crossing of water or submersion into water and into a lower plane of existence. ‘Death By Water’ is specifically about the journey of my soul through the plane of existence into the underworld”.
“Death By Water” Featuring Spencer Charnas of Ice Nine Kills is out now via Pure Noise Records.
“Death By Water” lyrics
All my heroes have died at the end of a rope petrified
So what does that mean for me cause I’ve been mining for salt in an empty sea
I’ve been reading my horoscope hoping it will help me cope
Will this anxiety always have its hold on me?
So I’ll dive down into hell, don’t bother wishing me wellI left my heart inside the ocean of you
I set fire to the sail
I let my lungs fill up I’m choking on you
There’s no way I’ll get awayThis connection feels like it’s too much but that’s just the price you pay for love
So I’ll dive down into hell, don’t bother wishing me wellI always listen to sad songs in the morning so it gets better than this
When the sun comes up I can see the faults and fill them in
“The darker the night the brighter the stars
The deeper the grief the closer you are to God”
What is Hell? It’s being unable to love.
