Back in 2019, Birmingham, Alabama’s Bitter Calm released their debut album Good Grief via Earth Libraries. It was a record which saw lead Michael Harp—along with Meg Ford (violin), Alex Guin (bass) and Chayse Porter (percussion)—create a dark and often expansive brand of slowcore which lived up to the album’s title. Songs, as the label put it, “deeply, loudly, profoundly sad.”
Now Bitter Calm have returned with ‘Salt’, their first single since the release of Good Grief, which ushers in something of a sea change from the outfit. Because though the song is still concerned with the weighty themes of love and death, the shadowy slowcore sensibilities are replaced with something altogether brighter and more melodic. “When I grow into the light / could I be your little furnace?” Harp asks in the opening lines, hinting at the darkness behind the vibrant strings and guitar. “And if I go out in the night / would I see you in the morning?” Because make no mistake, the themes underpinning the track cut to the bone of human experience. “This song is about the pain of knowing who could be hurt by the irreversible decision to leave this world,” as Harp explains, “let alone who is already hurt by my current expressed desire to want to leave it in the first place.”