Always Looking Behind captures Sungaze at their most intimate and softly devastating. Known for a sound that’s comforting, and steeped in nostalgia, the band strike a balance between light and dark, as heavy swells collide with fragile moments, and soaring guitars wrap around enticing vocals.
Coming from Cincinnati, Ohio, the band's music is born from the rare chemistry between Ivory Snow and Ian Hilvert, whose connection gives their songs a notable emotional weight.
The track is rooted in loss. It was the death of Snow’s father that ultimately set in motion her long-deferred meeting with Hilvert, after years of parallel lives brushing past one another. Inspired by Snow’s final night in her childhood home, on the eve of her father’s move to hospice, Always Looking Behind becomes a message to her younger self and a reflection on the dangers of lingering too long in memory.
Snow shares: “My dad died a month after I turned 17. There were a lot of things in my childhood that forced me to grow up a bit quicker than I wanted to, but I’ve always seen his death as the biggest catalyst. In a way, this project and this part of me would not exist without that experience and the chain reaction it set off. It’s what led me to meet Ian [Hilvert, lead guitar].
It got worse after my dad’s death, but I’ve always been a pretty nostalgic person and am well-acquainted with the feeling of missing something even before it’s gone–almost like a sort of preemptive or anticipatory grief. Over time, I’ve found that this proclivity I have for losing myself to the past has prevented me from living fully in the present. I realized I didn’t want to someday reach the end of my life and look back only to see I missed everything because I was always looking behind.”
Snow continues: “I view this song as a conversation between my present day self and the 17 year old version of me who felt like her world was falling apart; like she was dying right alongside her favorite person. I wanted to allow her to tell her story, through her own lens.
Historically, it’s been a real challenge for me to find the balance between tapping into past experiences and being consumed by them. I think for a while I felt like it would be inauthentic to sing about things that happened and how I felt about them if I wasn’t still feeling that way. So I would drum up these past hurts and hold onto them, like clinging to embers from a dying fire with my bare hands. I’m slowly learning how to view the fire from a distance, how to draw upon its warmth without stoking it unnecessarily.”
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Sungaze
Softseed Music
Candlepin Records
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