Stay Inside have released their new EP Blight today via No Sleep Records. The EP is the follow up to the bands critically acclaimed 2020 debut album, Viewing. Listen to it now below.
The writing process for Blight began in early 2020, darkened by despair and disillusionment with a crumbling New York. Stay Inside returned to work with Jon Markson, this time unencumbered by divided sessions and a burgeoning sonic facelift.
The past finds ways to creep into the present, reopening wounds and knocking down once-closed doors. Brooklyn’s Stay Inside—drummer Vishnu Anantha, vocalist/guitarist Chris Johns, guitarist/vocalist Chris Lawless, and bassist/vocalist Bryn Nieboer—has grappled with the ways memories continue to mar and haunt the ability to move beyond pain. While Viewing processed this grief and turmoil through trials of self-understanding, Blight follows up on this journey by exclaiming that it can also lead to destruction, paranoia, and disintegration.
While not explicitly a concept record, it charts the shockwaves of suffering and decay that follow a person’s decision to chase reminders of past lives with self-destructive tendencies. The band created a composite from witnessing loved ones deteriorate and crafted a narrative that shows divorcing oneself from their past is a break from reality. There is a will to return to the surface and move on, but Stay Inside dares to ask: at what cost, and who really pays?