Ohio one-person emo band Superdestroyer has just followed last year's Such Joy with a new album, In Your Loneliness, Your Holiness, released on his own Lonely Ghost Records. Like his last album, the new one is all over the place, pulling equally from emo/pop punk and weirdo bedroom synthpop, and presented in a scrappy, lo-fi, totally DIY fashion. He calls it "post-genre" and that's very accurate. It also has one song featuring rapper Pink Navel and one influenced specifically by Eve 6. Listen below.
Along with the release, Superdestroyer gave us a track-by-track breakdown of the record, and you can read on for that as you listen...
"MK-Johntra"
This was built around that fuzz loop you hear at the very beginning of the song. I thought it might be fun to build a song around noise instead of a riff or melody. I composed most of it on a microkorg and a kaossilator and once I had the structure of the song I added drums, guitar, and some extra synth layers. As soon as I finished the instrumental I decided I wanted it to be the opener. Lyrically it's pretty simple, but I think they capture that feeling of being lonely despite not being physically alone. I had read a book about mind control experiments conducted under the CIA's MK-Ultra Project and the ways people's psyches were broken and was like, "am I doing that to myself?"
"What Font Is Your Voice?"
This was the next song I wrote and I knew I wanted it to go back to back with "MK-Johntra." I wrote this in January of 2021 and was still trying to process the drastic shift in lifestyle that accompanied a year in quarantine. I saw people desperate to do things in the world again and wondered what it meant that I didn't really feel that desperation. Instrumentally I just wanted to make something heavier and punkier so I looped some punk chords and went from there.
"Slow Horror"
This track was inspired by the Hereditary soundtrack, particularly the treehouse scene at the end. I loved the juxtaposition of this really ambient, peaceful track against something more sinister. I'm a fan of slow horror films where things are mundane until you get to the end. It felt like an appropriate metaphor for growing old, so I tried to capture that discomfort in the context of a love song, and to juxtapose contentment and joy against the terror one feels when grappling with mortality.
"SU '85"
This is a sequel to a song I never released, but I like that idea of only seeing a piece of the whole. I wanted to capture some of that early '10s indie nostalgia sound because it's very atmospheric and has a way of turning familiar and mundane experiences into something unfamiliar and sad. My partner and I both work a lot and then when we have days off together we're usually so tired we end up hanging out at home even though we try to make plans to do things. I wanted to make a sleepy sounding song that captured the disappointment of knowing your job has sucked the energy and ambition out of your life and how that affects the way you spend your time with someone you love.
"IHWYDWTP"
Since the album was about isolation and loneliness, I tried to think about those sorts of experiences in my life that really stuck with me. I remember living with roommates that just didn't gel and how awful it is to feel like a stranger in your own home. I looped the guitar riff and built a song around it with early '00s alt rock and pop punk in mind, specifically Eve 6. I've been a huge fan of them since I was a kid and I thought this was a good opportunity to try to make my own version of that.
"Eternal Mountain"
This was the first song I wrote for the album. I was trying to loop some pop punk riffs for Lonny from Acid Flashback at Nightmare Beach but ended up creating this song instead. I built loops on my kaossilator and that ended up shaping this whole project. It was going to be an instrumental but last minute I decided it still needed something. So after disliking my attempts at vocals, I reached out to Dev (Pink Navel) because I love their music and thought it might sound cool with a rap verse and they knocked it out of the park. I just went back and added some extra vocals to fill it out and make if flow with the rest of the album.
"We Used To Live Here"
This is an older song of mine from an album I never released. I always liked the song and realized early on in the process of writing this album that it would be a great fit, so as I wrote I tried to keep "WUTLH" in mind so that there would be a flow because I knew I wanted this track to be the closer. I had written it after moving out of a home I shared with an ex. We ended amicably and on good terms, but it still was something I wanted to process because I had never gone through that experience before and I generally process my emotions through song writing.