B-Side Guys

Some songs arrive fully formed yet ancient, as if they’ve always existed somewhere in the collective consciousness. Graveyard Choir’s debut single “Roads” possesses this unsettling timelessness—a flood ballad that feels simultaneously ripped from today’s headlines and excavated from Dust Bowl-era field recordings.

This newly formed Colorado trio—comprised of INTHEWHALE veterans Nate Valdez (vocals, guitar, lap steel) and Eric Riley (drums), alongside MUSUJI’s Thom Whitney on bass—delivers Americana that earns its gravitas. Unlike bands that adopt rootsy aesthetics as costume, Graveyard Choir’s authenticity stems from frontman Valdez’s unusual day job: working at a mortuary. This professional proximity to mortality infuses “Roads” with unflinching perspective on grief’s devastation.

The track opens with stark economy, establishing both narrative and emotional landscape in just four lines. Valdez’s account of a flood that claimed his narrator’s entire family avoids melodrama through its blunt delivery, particularly effective when describing the pastor’s prayers juxtaposed with the gravedigger’s pragmatic actions. The measured vocal approach creates space for listeners to project their own experiences of loss into the narrative.

What distinguishes “Roads” from similar tragedy ballads is its refusal to offer spiritual consolation. When the chorus declares “There ain’t no pot of gold/There ain’t no love no hope/There’s just/Just more road,” Valdez delivers these lines not with theatrical despair but with the flat affect of someone stating observable fact. This emotional restraint makes the song’s conclusion—where the narrator contemplates suicide to join his family—all the more devastating.

Instrumentally, the arrangement supports rather than distracts from the narrative. Riley’s drumming provides skeletal rhythm while Whitney’s bass work offers harmonic foundation that never overreaches. Most effective is Valdez’s lap steel, which provides wordless commentary throughout the track, its keening tone suggesting emotions too raw for verbal expression.

As the debut single from their forthcoming album “Restorative Art” (itself a mortuary term for preparing bodies for viewing), “Roads” establishes Graveyard Choir as practitioners of Americana that honors the genre’s tradition of unflinching storytelling. By channeling professional exposure to death into artistic exploration, Valdez and his collaborators have created something increasingly rare: a song about tragedy that neither exploits nor sanitizes its subject matter, instead bearing honest witness to grief’s desolate landscape.