Fiddlehead

This Friday 18th August, Fiddlehead are releasing their highly anticipated third full-length, Death Is Nothing To Us via Run For Cover Records, and today the band are sharing one more early preview of the album with their powerful new single ‘Fifteen To Infinity’. They also announce a UK tour for next year with support from the hotly tipped MSPAINT - who make their UK debut - as well as an extra date at London’s Garage after the first sold-out.

Guitarist Alex Henery directed the song's music video, and discussed its inspirations, saying: "Since I knew this was a love song, I asked Pat if there were any specific early memories of him and his now wife. He told me they used to be pretty adventurous, and enjoyed breaking into abandoned buildings and go cliff jumping as teens. There was something there that sparked my interest to make a video about a Bonny and Clyde style couple but with more petty theft rather than murder and robbing banks. That contrasts with the original idea of the song that states that even the simple moments of a relationship like watching TV together are special and 'heavenly.' I wanted the two moments to go hand in hand. That one isn’t more special than the other. 

I filmed this video outside LA, it was insanely hot and the car we used had no working AC. My actors Jack and Kaylinn were amazing and fully got into character, the whole thing just felt so natural. After working with them all day we got talking on the way home and they also direct and shoot videos. They ended up making the video for our second single 'Sleepyhead.' Also strangely the day the video was completed, I showed my friend Remy cut as he was the one who let us use his car for the video. And that night the car was actually stolen and the police had recovered it. There was a Russian passport found in the back with a bunch of random metal items. I don’t know why I’m telling you this but it felt appropriate."

Death Is Nothing To Us finds Fiddlehead completing the thematic trilogy that began with their previous two releases, resulting in a truly special album that feels like both a culmination of the band's work so far, and one of the year's most captivating and life-affirming rock records.

The album's previous singles, ‘Sleepyhead’ and ‘Sullenboy’ garnered attention from Stereogum [Best Songs of The Week], Pitchfork, The FADER, BrooklynVegan, Uproxx, Revolver Magazine, and many more, and now ‘Fifteen To Infinity’ provides one more jolt of post-hardcore energy to tide listeners over until Friday's album release. The track highlights Fiddlehead's ability to seamlessly blend massive melodies into their sound without sacrificing an ounce of grit and energy, packing a chorus that's sure to inspire singalongs and stage dives in equal measure. 

Fiddlehead's sophomore album, Between The Richness, drew praise from fans and critics alike and saw the band unexpectedly becoming one of the most vital groups in rock music today. Now on Death Is Nothing To Us, vocalist Pat Flynn delves deeper than ever into the nuances of loss and sadness, but his deeply vulnerable approach is exhilarating and often even joyous in its humanity. The album offers Fiddlehead's most dynamic set of songs to date, with every track pushing further into the melodic and aggressive poles of their sound, all while Flynn tackles difficult existential themes with an open-heartedness that comes through in every word.

"I don’t want people to romanticise grief and depression, myself included,” he explains. “But I wanted to write about the way loss can perpetuate this feeling of sadness in your life. I didn’t intend to make some kind of thematic trilogy but there is this connection to the first two records, and this album sort of rounds out some of the stages of grief that weren’t addressed previously–especially this feeling of stickiness that a depressive attitude can have.” The lyrics on Death Is Nothing To Us attempt to reject the allure of sorrow with a deftness and intensity that's matched by Fiddlehead's music, creating one of the most undeniably compelling albums you'll hear this year. 

Fiddlehead also announce live dates in Japan and Australia, and will tour the US before returning to the UK next year. Tickets on-sale now.

Death Is Nothing To Us
out 18th August 2023 via Run For Cover Records

More about Fiddlehead:

Formed with the most modest of expectations, Fiddlehead has unexpectedly become one of the most vital groups in rock music. Their fervent audience responds to the urgency of their music, but also the intensely human exploration of loss that’s coloured so much of the band’s output. Fiddlehead’s previous albums, 2018’s Springtime and Blind and 2021’s Between The Richness, dealt heavily with grief from different perspectives, and now their latest album, Death Is Nothing To Us, feels like a de facto culmination, drawing together many of the catalogue’s through-lines sonically and lyrically. The album finds Fiddlehead so deeply delving into the pain, confusion, nuances, and contradictions of sadness–so willingly wrapping their arms around a concept as existentially baffling as death itself–that they’ve created an album that is truly life-affirming. 

“I don’t want people to romanticise grief and depression, myself included,” vocalist Patrick Flynn explains. “But I wanted to write about the way loss can perpetuate this feeling of sadness in your life. I didn’t intend to make some kind of thematic trilogy but there is this connection to the first two records, and this album sort of rounds out some of the stages of grief that weren’t addressed previously–especially this feeling of stickiness that a depressive attitude can have.” This is the mental space where Death Is Nothing To Us exists, with Flynn observing the confounding allure of sorrow and the difficulty of holding onto so many conflicting internal and external hurts at once. He approaches this subject matter with a deftness and intensity that can only be matched by that of the music itself. 

Since forming in 2014, Fiddlehead–Flynn, drummer Shawn Costa, guitarists Alex Henery and Alex Dow, and bassist Nick Hinsch–have been honing their unique sound, bringing together the energy of hardcore, the anthemic melodies of ‘90s alternative, the unbridled passion of Revolution Summer era emo. For Death Is Nothing To Us, the band again teamed with producer/engineer Chris Teti, and his punchy production captures the spark of Fiddlehead’s live show while doing justice to the massive guitars and undeniable catchiness that makes their music so immensely satisfying. The album’s concise 27 minutes sound like a natural extension of all of the band’s strengths, embracing the more melodic sensibilities of Between The Richness while maintaining the visceral bite of Springtime and Blind. “We knew we wanted to do something a little more aggressive sounding,” explains Henery. “That kind of stuff grounds the band. I think maybe people would have expected us to go cleaner with this LP but I see this as a real mix of the first two.” 

The band’s agile sound, whether in their fiery attack or soaring choruses, is glued together by Flynn’s singular tuneful roar. From his seminal early band Have Heart, to Fiddlehead and his many projects in-between (Clear, Wolf Whistle, Free, Sweet Jesus…), the vocalist has earned a reputation as not only one of the most engaging performers in hardcore but also one of the genre’s most thoughtful lyricists. Here, on Death Is Nothing To Us, his lyrics cross into the rarified air where they could stand on their own, without the music. Across the album, Flynn seamlessly interweaves his ruminations on life, death, and all the joy and tragedy in between with references to Roman philosopher Lucretius; the author Jean Améry; other musicians like Bad Brains, Alex G, or Wire (doubling as a nod to the iconic Minor Threat cover of “12XU”); and even titles and lyrics from Fiddlehead’s own back catalogue. 

Yet Death Is Nothing To Us goes beyond simply touching on similar themes as Fiddlehead’s previous work. There’s a key distinction here–a sense of clarity, and perhaps even moreso, a sense of defiance. The title makes things clear: this is a statement, a line in the sand, and it’s not about one person, it’s about us. “I saw the title in this poem, ‘On The Nature of Things,’” Flynn explains. “It was rediscovered around The Renaissance, and it helped remind people more of the greatness of life and less about the sadness of death. It’s about not allowing death to rule over life.” 

And fittingly, the album is bursting with life. The  humanity across Death Is Nothing To Us is palpable in every note, and it’s the kind of art that observes pain with real honesty rather than prescribing a solution for it–and in doing so, inadvertently offers some sense of hopefulness. Mid-album standout “Sullenboy” highlights this dichotomy: on its first verse, Flynn plainly describes trying to muster the energy to fight off another day’s depression; on the second verse, he finds it in the light of his partner and their children, singing, “their day is young and their future’s wide / and I’ll die before I don’t help them rise.” On either side, the band provides one of the most tremendous choruses they’ve ever written, one brimming with vulnerability rather than empty platitudes (“I feel the fear / I can’t repair broken records of family trees / I feel the fear I will repeat”). 

Elsewhere on “True Hardcore (II),” Flynn turns his attention to the subculture that’s given him so much, and that he’s given so much to in return. “I was always drawn to punk music because it seemed like it wasn’t this sage on the stage–it’s a weird community that exists without anyone really telling it what to do,” he explains. That world seems to both contrast and compliment Flynn’s daily life as a history teacher in Massachusetts: there’s no stage dives to be found, but the warmth he brings to hardcore still drives his work. “It’s kind of the perfect job to have for an artist’s life,” he says. “The amount of human experience you engage with…I’ve been doing it for over ten years, I’ve worked with over a thousand kids.” 

That compassion exudes from “The Woes,” a key track where Flynn speaks directly to the listeners. “To the strange, stuck-in-bed, death-obsessed, Fiddleheads,” he bellows. “I can see you and me suffering silently / we’re visible and we’re seen when life is everything.” Flynn explains, “It acknowledges this paradox of personal suffering vs. communal suffering…you can never truly know the pain of another, but the outside world’s suffering doesn’t negate your own. And you can’t afford to ignore the suffering of others, either.” The song’s conviction exemplifies so much of what makes Fiddlehead a special band: taking these heady, unanswerable questions and wrestling with them in a very earthbound way, all wrapped up in the urgent power of a sub-three minute punk song. 

The 12th and final track, “Going To Die,” concludes Death Is Nothing To Us with a rush of major chord riffs that break out of the speakers like a sharp beam of sunlight cracking out of thick clouds. Flynn pays tribute to the people in his life who have passed–family, friends, heroes–and says he’ll see them again. The loss is still there, and it’s not going anywhere, but he reminds himself that there’s still so much more to this life than fixating on the end of it. “See you on the other side / I know I will / But I don’t wanna die.”