Photo by Kevin Condon

The sonic evolution of Big Bliss can directly be traced to over-arching effects of these times. Guitarist and vocalist Tim Race, bassist Rose Blanshei, and drummer Cory Race initially surfaced within Brooklyn’s independent scene as a soft squalor of morbid post-punk, and while that remains seeded within their sound, millennial disenchantment – due to a volatile political landscape, traumatic national events on the near-daily alongside the impacts of a global pandemic and seeing opportunities in basic affordable living once so easily attainable to previous generations becoming a thing of privilege – has caused them to dive into processing these events in introspection and grace. “A Seat at the Table”, the latest single and opening track from their forthcoming album, Vital Return, acknowledges these burdens and is a plea for a better future. “My seat has been taken at the table / The wrong place, the wrong time,” Race sings, and while circumstance could very easily be cause to unearth a heavy-handed kind of nihilism, he chooses to imagine a path where he and his peers cannot be defined by that which is out of their control. “Please don’t let it go to waste,” rings its chorus, with Big Bliss now in a version of themselves wise enough to abstain from darkness, and instead mining light as if their survival depends upon it. Because in a way, it does.

Big Bliss’ Vital Return will be released August 18th on Good Eye Records.