Where weight meets vulnerability and distortion becomes emotional architecture
Blackwater Holylight have never treated heaviness as show-off. For them, volume isn’t about force : it’s about feeling.
On ‘Not Here Not Gone’, their fourth album – released a few days ago via Suicide Squeeze Records (Minus The Bear) – and first since relocating from Portland to Los Angeles, the band sharpens a sound rooted in doom, psych rock, and shoegaze, channeling the density of heavy music through the intimacy of singer-songwriter confession. The result is their most focused and emotionally resonant record to date.
Here, the guitars are louder, the low end thicker, the distortion richer. But this isn’t heaviness for its own sake. It’s the weight of difficult conversations, of expectations, of endings you sense long before they arrive. Think Emma Ruth Rundle, Nothing or Chelsea Wolfe and Slow Cruch : personal doomgaze songwriting wrapped in walls of overdrive.
Produced by Sonny Diperri (DIIV, Narrow Head…), the album trades murk for clarity. Every element hits with intent. Guitars surge without swallowing the vocals; drums punch through with a grounded presence. Even at their most massive, the band leaves space for the ache to breathe.
Opening track “How Do You Feel” sets the tone with a storm of guitars beneath Sunny Faris’ steady, almost conversational delivery as she narrates a quiet breakup. Her restraint — calm, clear-eyed, unsentimental — makes the emotional impact sharper. The tension feels inevitable rather than explosive and that dynamic carries throughout. “Bodies” pivots from a muscular groove into melody. “Void to Be” cools from earthy percussion into stark minimalism. “Spade” swings with a classic, Sabbath-esque heft. Closer “Poppyfields” stretches toward catharsis through slow-burn repetition rather than brute force.
Across the record, Blackwater Holylight sidestep genre tropes. Instead of overwhelming the listener, they sculpt atmosphere. Distortion becomes texture and protection, amplifying themes of love, fatigue, and survival. The band hasn’t abandoned their heavy roots — they’ve refined them into something leaner, sharper, and distinctly their own.
