Legendary independent New York-based rock label Equal Vision Records and Hail The Sun are excited to present the music video for “Insensitive Tempo,” the latest single to be lifted from the Friday, October 24 release of cut. turn. fade. back., the forthcoming studio album from the acclaimed experimental California-based rock band (pre-save, pre-add, pre-order HERE). Frontman Donovan Melero had the following to share about the inspiration behind the song: “Bertrand Cantat killed his girlfriend in the early-’00s, citing violence as a ‘crime of passion’. He served an embarrassingly low sentence and many questions still surround the case. Domestic violence is often packaged as a ‘crime of passion’ and somehow this designates less responsibility to the perpetrator. It’s absurd.”
Melero adds, “‘Insensitive Tempo’ was inspired by these actions. But furthermore, it dives into a bigger topic. At a young age, we see how adults treat other adults, and we can dismiss red flags of violence as signs of intimacy because that’s what we have learned. It can become a vicious cycle and I feel like there is a need to reevaluate how we digest this type of behavior from an early age." Watch the music video for “Insensitive Tempo,” directed by Jesse Korman and starring Rose Lane Sanfilippo and David Debiak Jr., on YouTube HERE.
Hail The Sun are currently touring North America with Between The Buried and Me. Featuring support from Delta Sleep and The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die in select markets through Thursday, October 30, Hail The Sun will also be headlining Kill Iconic Fest in San Antonio, TX on Sunday, October 5, which will also feature performances by Head Automatica, Between The Buried and Me, Makari, Omerta, Murals, Resilia and more. Tickets for all shows are on sale now via the band’s official site HERE, and a full listing of dates can be found below.
Produced & engineered by Pete Adams and GRAMMY® Award Winner Johnny Kosich of Beach Noise (Kendrick Lamar), and mixed & mastered by Zakk Cervini (Blink-182, Bring Me The Horizon, Coheed and Cambria), cut. turn. fade. back. truly finds Hail The Sun going the distance, encompassing the complete cycle of life with its four monosyllabic words. An album touching on topics such as military atrocities, humanitarian crises, addiction, lost love and death, the 11 songs presented here capture the cyclical nature of all those things, as well as life itself in general.
Anybody familiar with Hail The Sun will know there’s always a great deal of meaning beneath the surface. Theirs are songs that probe the very nature of existence, that strive to find the answers to the fundamental questions that being human raises, and that don’t flinch away from any form of self-reflection whatsoever. That’s been the case since the band—lead vocalist Donovan Melero, guitarists Shane Gann and Aric Garcia, bassist John Stirrat and drummer Allen Casillas—formed in Chico, CA in 2009, but which is especially the case on cut. turn. fade. back., their seventh full-length.
For the first time in their career, Hail The Sun worked with the production outfit Beach Noise, whose experience is much more steeped in the hip-hop world—most notably, they worked on a good chunk of Kendrick Lamar’s acclaimed 2022 album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers. On paper, it seems like a drastic shift, but the reality is less dramatic—the band actually went to college with a member of Beach Noise, so they’ve been in each other’s orbits for a while now.
Yet at the same time, Hail The Sun wanted to return to their roots of being a band in a room and jamming live. In order to do so, they went to Pus Cavern recording studios in Sacramento with Beach Noise in tow to craft the songs that had mostly been written already. So while cut. turn. fade. back. doesn’t see the band flip genres or anything, the production team definitely had an active role in the creation of these songs, as well as their final product.
From the moment the post-hardcore lilt of “The Drooling Class” kicks this record off until the passionate intensity of “War Crimes” brings it to an end in a cacophony that emulates the violent conflicts that inspired it, cut. turn. fade. back. becomes part of the band’s own cycle—re-establishing who they are while simultaneously (but subtly) reshaping their identity. Just listen to the spiteful, coruscating energy of “There’s No Place In Heaven For Fakes”, the shapeshifting, surround-sound production of “Insensitive Tempo” and “Blight”, and the almost constant crescendo of “I Can Tell By The Scars” and it’s clear that Hail The Sun are as intentional and fervent about their art as they ever have been.
“It doesn’t matter if people take away the intended message from these songs,” says Melero, “and I’m certainly not going to police it, but we do, as always, want to encourage critical thinking. Fifteen years in, I love that we've been allowed this fan base to speak to. I feel very grateful and fortunate, and I hope that it keeps carrying us forward and continues to be the thing that we can sustain life from.”
Hail The Sun will be making the following appearances in 2025. Dates below with more to be announced soon.
SEPTEMBER
18 — Toronto, ON — Danforth Music Hall *
19 — Montreal, QC — Beanfield Theatre *
20 — Portland, ME — Aura *
21 — Albany, NY — Empire Live *
22 — Brooklyn, NY — Warsaw *
23 — Sayreville, NJ — Starland Ballroom *
25 — Raleigh, NC — The Ritz *
26 — Charleston, SC — Music Farm *
27 — Atlanta, GA — The Masquerade *
29 — Ft. Lauderdale, FL — Culture Room *
30 — Orlando, FL — House of Blues *
OCTOBER
01 — New Orleans, LA — Joy Theater *
02 — Houston, TX — Warehouse Live *
04 — Dallas, TX — Granada Theater *
05 — San Antonio, TX — Kill Iconic Fest
07 — Phoenix, AZ — Nile Theater *
08 — Riverside, CA — Municipal Auditorium *
09 — Las Vegas, NV — 24 Oxford
10 — San Francisco, CA — August Hall *
12 — Portland, OR — Revolution Hall *
13 — Seattle, WA — The Crocodile *
14 — Vancouver, BC — The Pearl *
16 — Edmonton, AB — Union Hall *
17 — Calgary, AB — Macewan Hall *
19 — Spokane, WA — Knitting Factory *
20 — Boise, ID — Knitting Factory *
21 — Bozeman, MT — The Elm *
22 — Missoula, MT — The Wilma *
24 — Denver, CO — Summit Music Hall *
25 — Wichita, KS — TempleLive *
26 — Des Moines, IA — Wooly’s *
27 — Chicago, IL — Vic Theatre *
28 — Columbus, OH — Newport Music Hall *
29 — Nashville, TN — Brooklyn Bowl *
30 — Charlotte, NC — The Fillmore *
* — co-headline with Between The Buried and Me