We first wrote about New York’s Belaver back in 2018, with the release of single ‘Grave Robber’. The track, which was described as “exploring the dark and dingy corners of the human experience,” utilised acoustic guitar, synths and Ben Godfrey’s distinctive delivery to occupy the intersection of wry humour and melancholy. The style was developed further in 2019 with True Love of Crime, a full-length album on Feel Bad Records. Traversing tales of robbers, vampires and addicts, the album channeled the likes of Mount Eerie and Bill Callahan to weave a world of its own, a spirit captured on the closing track, ‘Driver’:
Acting as an encapsulation of the Belaver aesthetic, the sound is undeniably downbeat, imagining a series of possible futures that range from disastrous to ridiculous, though a thin seam of hope perseveres. However fatalistic the song might be, it is never purely pessimistic, remaining as open to the dice landing favorably as it is to the inevitable set of snake eyes.
This month sees Belaver return with ‘Here It Comes’, a brand new single that continues this mood into the newly dystopian present. “They say the world is going to end,” goes the opening lines. “It’s everybody’s final chance / to make it better if they can / it’s up to them.” It’s the one-two punch of our times, societal collapse and society’s insistence that only personal responsibility can stop the fall. But the oceans are rising and choked with plastic, the earth is barren and dry. What hope is there?
‘Here It Comes’ takes a queer delight in the fulfilment of its prophecies, a kind of release that only comes with accepting the worst. “We’ll try to get it right next time,” Godfrey sings, “and if we fuck up, so what? / So we die another time.” The thing about the death-fearing pessimist is he’s always proven right in the end.
Check out the video below, with cinematography from A. Jung and directed by Godfrey himself.
‘Here it Comes’ is out now via Feel Bad Records.