Following the release of their first full-length album Butcher’s Coin, Shawn Tucker and Sean-Patrick Nolan of Toronto post-punk band TRAITRS have begun releasing their next batch of dark post-punk music with Magdalene, their first release on new label Freakwave, a label that was launched at the beginning of 2020.
On their days off from touring in February 2019 in Copenhagen, Tucker and Nolan had slept on the floor of a cold and narrow office space for days. It had barely enough room for a toilet, two thin mattresses, and a small sink. With their home and life in Toronto, Canada nearly four thousand miles away, the two intrepid musicans locked themselves in a rehearsal space and wrote new music across the span of a couple of days.
“It was a strange time since the shows were going great but personally it was a very dark period for both of us,” says synth player Sean-Patrick Nolan. “Writing new songs allowed us to briefly escape reality and refocus ourselves.” Inspired by a Naked Eyes rhythm, the immediacy of The Police, and the malaise of The Smiths, “Magdalene” came to be in a matter of three frenzied hours. It’s the expulsion of pent-up frustration and manic creative energy from several months of touring internationally, constantly being away from home while coping with loss and depression.
“You can direct the pain from loss in both healthy and self-destructive ways,” writes singer Shawn Tucker. “Eventually you just feel numb from it all and dream of a day when the hurt finally stops.”
Watch the video for “Magdalene” below:
“Magdalene” is featured on the forthcoming 6 tracks record The Sick, Tired and Ill to be issued on an exclusive 10’’ vinyl, strictly limited to 500 copies world-wide. comes out on July 2, 2021, on Freakwave, distributed by The Orchard.
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