Sadurn Share New Single ‘can’t stop’
Sadurn are gearing up for their anticipated sophomore album, The Underworld, arriving 16th October via Run For Cover Records/Civilians, and today the indie folk band have shared another great new single, can’t stop.
The Underworld follows Sadurn’s acclaimed 2022 debut album, Radiator, and it expands the band’s graceful blend of alt-country, bedroom pop, and intimate indie rock, while leaning even deeper into songwriter G DeGroot’s heartrendingly personal lyrical honesty. The result is one of the most deeply human albums you’ll hear this year, a document of hard-earned catharsis that somehow feels at once grounded and miraculous.
Previous singles never tell me and whole thing demonstratedly the emotionally-charged hooks and guitar fireworks that appear throughout The Underworld, and now can’t stop offers a glimpse of the more lofi side of Sadurn’s sound. A gently crunchy drum loop powers the song as DeGroot demonstrates their incredibly ability to conjure catharsis no matter the volume.
DeGroot discussed the new song, saying: “I made ‘can’t stop’ on GarageBand – it was supposed to be a demo that we recreated to be more nice and official, but the feel just wasn’t the same, so we kept the original. I’m proud of that. It has some reversed pedal steel on it, and there’s this one vocal sample at the end from a time some friends were singing in a tunnel in the woods – the same tunnel is featured on the cover of the album, which feels significant in this secret little way. The song speaks to the feeling of being stuck on a past relationship, revisiting things over and over and looking for glimmers of hope that it could be real again. This is a big theme in the album – being stuck on the past – although each song has its own subtle emotional valence to that experience.”
Sadurn began purely as a creative and emotional exercise for DeGroot, but a cold email unexpectedly caught the attention of Run For Cover Records, and Radiator immediately connected with listeners and critics upon its release in 2022. It was an exciting and often daunting position for a new band to be in: suddenly this personal outlet had an enthusiastic audience. “Right after we finished Radiator I already had new songs, but the idea that now there was some kind of expectation did change things in a negative way for me,” DeGroot explains. “So much of my sense of self had become tied up in the band, I got kind of swept up in the pressure of these internalised ideas about what’s going to be good for you or your life.”
The strain of following up a well-received debut isn’t entirely uncommon among musicians, but for DeGroot it wasn’t simply a matter of wanting to make LP2—it became a question of whether or not they could physically do it. The pressure around the band was one thing, but amidst it all, DeGroot was also going through a very challenging breakup and dealing with the physical fallout. “I was having chronic pain, problems with my voice, gut issues, It felt so urgent to try and keep things going, but my body was saying no.”
The Underworld captures DeGroot’s journey to finding new ways to mentally and physically heal, an album of lived-in, earthly details, that also seems to reach beyond the things we can touch and see–a highly personal and metaphysical dedication to coming back to oneself told through one of the most universal experiences imaginable. “The underworld is the hard times, but it’s also about getting back,” says DeGroot. “You go into the underworld so you can find clarity about your own being and come back changed. That’s just my fundamental belief about healing, it’s not about wallowing but you do need to move towards the darkness in order to transform it and get unstuck. It’s how you discover your most important powers.”
can’t stop is out now and streaming everywhere. The Underworld will be out Friday 16 October via Run For Cover/Civilians.
TRACK LISTING
- the weight
- after we went under the bridge
- never tell me
- can’t stop
- mess
- the map
- why does my heart
- whole thing
- only angels
