Sadurn "The Underworld" [First Run Club - Dark Sky Vinyl]

Throughout The Underworld, the rawness of DeGroot’s lyrics are matched by Cox, Ahnert, and Swain’s evocative playing. Stunning opener “the weight” describes the early stages of a relationship deteriorating, with brilliant soloing from Cox and DeGroot’s warm voice intertwining through its widescreen outro. Highlights like “mess,” “never tell me,” or “whole thing” strike a perfect balance between lush arrangements and intimate performances, while tracks like “why does my heart” or “can’t stop” add unvarnished, single take moments of spontaneity, or GarageBand demo looseness that perfectly compliment the unabashed longing in the songwriting. “After this relationship ended, it felt like a sacred part of myself didn’t belong to me anymore,” DeGroot explains. “Writing these songs helped me reconnect with my spirit and confront the hidden belief that I needed something outside of myself to be safe or good or whole. The same belief was perfectly mirrored in my urgency with the band, so somehow it was also necessary for me to face all these obstacles in finishing the record itself in order to get to the other side of this lesson. I had to be forced to put it down, to learn that I could be okay without the relationship, without knowing if my voice would ever heal, or if the project would ever move forward. It was kind of like an allegory–I needed to learn all that, and then I could go back and finish it.” The result is an album that’s full of lived-in, earthly details, that also seems to reach beyond the things we can touch and see–a highly personal and metaphysical dedication to coming back to oneself told through one of the most universal experiences imaginable.

Perhaps no song captures The Underworld’s musical and lyrical scope better than its closing track “only angels.” The eight minute-long song stretches out methodically, its first half sparse and gentle, just DeGroot’s voice and acoustic guitar, with every strum and syllable sounding deliberately placed and imbued with emotion. Then four minutes in, the bass and drums finally join, followed by fiddle, then vocal harmonies as the song builds in urgency, sprawling out and wrapping around the listener like a realization that can’t be avoided any longer: things have changed for good, and acceptance is the only way forward. “The underworld is the hard times, but it’s also about getting back,” says DeGroot. “You go into the underworld so you can find clarity about your own being and come back changed. That’s just my fundamental belief about healing, it’s not about wallowing but you do need to move towards the darkness in order to transform it and get unstuck. It’s how you discover your most important powers.”