As anyone who has experienced it can tell you, depression is much more than feeling sad. It can be physically and mentally paralyzing; it can make sleep feel like the only solution yet nearly impossible to achieve; and it can make the future feel entirely hopeless. It’s no secret that many of us here at Substream are big fans of Hodera, and their latest effort “Four White Walls” just might be their most moving track yet. The song builds from a hauntingly simple intro to lead singer / guitarist Matthew Smith’s declaration that he’s “running out of hope” and his shouts in the final verse, and it’s a devastating portrayal of the realities of mental illness and depression. “Four White Walls” premiered on Punk News, and you can listen for yourself here.
In a press release, Smith says of the song: “I wrote this song during a depressive downward spiral that landed me in the hospital. Of all the waves of depression I’ve experienced over the last decade, this was the lowest I had ever gotten and the closest to death. I was fucked up on red wine and cough syrup at 2am and started writing this song in my bed, which is in a little nook of the basement, surrounded by four white walls. We finished the song and recorded it after my last hospitalization, so the ‘white walls’ are also partly referring to the hospital walls, or really just the feeling of being trapped, stuck in a hopeless rut.”
“Four White Walls” comes to us as the third track released from Hodera’s forthcoming album First Things First, which will be released on October 20 via Take This To Heart Records. Pre-orders for LP, CD, and digital copies of the record are available through the label’s website here. Hodera will be going on tour across the Northeast and Midwest this fall in support of the album; head to their website to see if they’ll be in your area.
