Good morning B-Side Battletoads! (I like that one, and it also shouts out the hardest game of my childhood) Before we get into this song, I just need to say that this artist/band name is one of my favorites I’ve ever seen, along with the cover art. It’s one of those when you hear it, you are bummed that you can’t use it for your future project haha. Not that I would be creative enough to come up with it anyway. Alright now let’s dive into the song. Let’s start with the lyrics:

“You can take the water
You can take the wine
From our souls
You can drink it dry

Well you can see the storm
It’s coming from the west
It’s been howling for days
You can see the sun yeah it’s leaving the bay

You can save tomorrow
Or relive yesterday
Or you can drown in sorrow
and feel the pain”

I love the ambiguity and mystery in this song. There seems to be some biblical nods, with the water and the wine, but the idea of this storm in the west reminds me of a personal experience. I don’t know how many of you have been to the American west, but one of the defining characteristics is how open everything is. This openness allows you to see a storm for several hours before it ever gets to you. So the chorus of this song reminds me of that concept, and even though you can see the storm for miles and miles and miles, you still can’t avoid it. It gives you more time to hunker down maybe, but the storm is coming anyway. It seems that this song explores what to do while you wait on the storm. Do you focus on the past? Do you drown yourself in sorrow? Do you anticipate the pain? I don’t know if we get a clear answer here, but maybe that’s the point. We each have to find our own answer.

Bio: The musical story of a South African born singer songwriter, inspired by the likes of Gregory Alan Isakov, Nathaniel Rateliff, Damien Rice & Sufjan Stevens. We Are All Fossils started in late 2014 but music has been the way of life for many years before that. March of 2015 saw the released of ‘Aether’ a live 6 track EP.

‘Songs For Strangers’ soon followed. A unique process where anyone could anonymously send in story (fiction/non fiction/undefined) to inspire a song. Out of these connections 8 tracks were created.

Late 2014 through to early 2018 were spent writing and recording for the debut album, a collection of songs that have survived the seasons. ‘The Optimist’ is the 10 track debut album from We Are All Fossils, released 4th June. The opening track and debut single ‘Honey Drop’ is a distinctive Indie/Folk sound that is a great introduction into the record.

-Caleb