There’s no answer waiting at the end of The Crisis of Existence. No crescendo of clarity. No grand closure. Sutras aren’t here to rescue anyone—they’re here to sit in the rubble and speak plainly. Built from charred edges of shoegaze, the heart wrenching feel of screamo and post hardcore and the rhythmic urgency of hardcore, the D.C.-based duo (Tristan Welch and Frederick Ashworth) that we discovered last year, drag unresolved questions into the open, letting them breathe and burn.
This hard-hitting album folds personal reckoning into collective collapse, laying bare what it’s like to try and live without clarity, without solutions, and without detachment. What if you’re not the bad guy, but you’ve still done bad things? What if you’re working yourself to death just to escape death? And what if the kingdom was never meant for you, even when you were a child?
“My mind, my body and my words seem to act in ways that are not always in line with my spirit,” says Welch in reference to Karma to Burn. That fracture runs deep through every track on this record. It’s an album about the effort to separate spirit from damage, without pretending either is ever pure.
The artwork, shaped through a collaboration with longtime friend Desmond Connolly (whose early 2000s work for the hope conspiracy and reach the sky aligns with Sutras’ sensibilities), marks thematic infrastructure.
“With Welcome Kingdom Kids we had the idea of kids running towards ‘something’ because who really knows,” says the band. “The ‘kingdom’ as we know it sure doesn’t seem pleasant but kids are innocent.” The track carries this same tone: baptism by fire in a culture of waste and consumption masked as plenty.
In Karma to Burn, the “burning bloom” emblem merges a dharma wheel with floral combustion—a logo that’s also a slow detonation. Bloom Watch makes a full circle—real D.C. imagery: cherry blossoms, eroding, drowning by the Potomac, collapsing under the slow pressure of climate and decay. “While having a spiritual connection it also bleeds right into the D.C. vibe that we have.” That’s the record’s DNA—capital-city ghosts with punk urgency, faith stitched to failure.
It all folds into the final cover: “The final cover art for the album blends all three images which is a very cool thing that we’re very happy with.”
At its core, The Crisis of Existence isn’t about offering explanations. It’s an attempt to document the lived reality of dissonance: between thought and action, between effort and meaning, between survival and surrender. Between who you are and who you think you should be.
Here’s the full track by track commentary:
Karma To Burn
My mind, my body and my words seem to act in ways that are not always in line with my spirit. Similar to the thought of “why do bad things happen to good people” – I often wonder, in regard to myself, “why do good people do bad things”. I’ve grown to a conclusion of sorts that my mind, my body and my words – are separate from my spirit or my soul. I’ve grown to embrace the concept of karma and with that, I’m burning off lots of bad things – and I think that cycle is going to be going on for a while. With this song – I’m hoping it will all end soon. In this song I’m trying to work through things without destructive nihilism but without attachment to what’s causing suffering.
Musically it’s a song that I really like – it was the first one on the record. It’s the first time I think we have pulled all our influences into one – and were able to do it in a way that is ours. I’ve always loved big group vocals in hardcore, I’ve had a thing for the personal side of punk / hardcore for years, lush soundscapes have been something I’ve always been attracted too, and pummeling punk drums make me happy. We’re very excited to play this live and hope people dig it.
Racing Sundown
This song means something to me – in an odd way, I guess. One that actually bothers me. I started jogging / running because I had been a smoker since I was a kid. I started doing this music where I had to use my voice and was struggling. I then started doing things like competing with myself and comparing myself to other people – forgetting the whole point in the exercise. So, I stopped using anything to track how far I was going or how fast I was going – I just began to focus on my breathing and how my body felt. I began thinking about the concept of “winning” and what that really means. I began to truly internalize that it doesn’t fucking matter if somebody is first or last. Whether something is easy or hard. Competition just causes pain. I mistakenly talked to a co-worker about this – a capitalist, company man who viewed business like a NFL game. They literally something was w
Welcome, Kingdom Kids
I was sitting in a church. I would end up in this room for funerals and recovery groups. It was the childcare room they would stick us in. In real big letters they had written “welcome, kingdom kids” and it was always stuck out to me. I never did research what they may have meant in their religious setting – but I took it and ran with it. The song is basically a thought process about being born into American materialism. Welcoming a child into the greatest nation of abundance, using it all up and turning it into trash. But don’t worry about it… it will be great. It turned into the catchiest song on the record we think.
Bloom Watch
We’re from Washington D.C. and cherry blossom flowers are definitely a thing. The Potomac River has been pushing up against where the Cherry Blossom trees from Japan are planted and a bunch of the trees had to be removed, which of course included a few notable ones. This will be the first year without stumpy – the one tree that was fighting till the very end. This song I really just wrote for myself to be on my computer and probably never see the light. But here it is because I like it. It’s using the cherry blossoms as a metaphor for being another struggling working-class citizen in Washington D.C.
Working Class Devotion
If anyone is a nerd about how songs are written or whatever, I’ll give the story on recording this one. I had revised this song maybe 10 times and would keep sending Fred the updates as I did it. Obviously at some point that becomes ridiculous and hard to keep track of. We were on the way to the studio listening to the demos’ and I was playing what I considered the “final version” and well Fred was like… what the fuck is this. Turns out he was practicing a version I had long since abandoned. It was easier for me to adapt than it was for him, so we rolled with his version. I pick up lyrics from various things I read or listen too – and used ‘Drop the rock and pick up the diamond” to represent giving up the chase for money and status for a full spirit. Which in essence is a terrible financial choice. I’m very poor right now because of that and I wrote this to maybe convince myself I’m doing the right thing.
Being Nobody, Going Nowhere
The ever long quest of any eastern spiritual teaching – to give up our ego. It’s so fucking hard. I am an egomaniac with an inferiority complex. I fucking hate every second of it. This song is written after reading many books on the topic of letting go of ego. Luckily, I play in a punk band and don’t need to supply any answers or teach – cause I’m clueless. I just know I need to find a way to get there. Musically this song didn’t hit the mark as I intended but still turned out cool. What was supposed to be a more post-punk influenced song with an oi beat – kinda turned into this weird thing that reminds me of planes mistaken for stars if they were into NYC minimalism like Glenn Branca, played shows with American Nightmare and really liked Sonic Youth.
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