Post-hardcore outfit Murals released a powerful new single “Out Of Sight, Out Of Spine” ft Garrett Russell (Silent Planet) on Equal Vision Records. Written about the famine and suffering occurring in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, this new track seeks to draw awareness to the humanitarian tragedy the country has faced over the last year. The band will donate a portion of all proceeds from the song to Refugees International. You can stream the song and learn more about Refugees International here.
Murals is a creative alliance between three talented instrumentalists – Shane Gann of Hail The Sun / Sufferer (guitar), Blake Dahlinger of Sufferer (drums) and Tony Bautista formerly of Mannequin Mishap (bass), alongside a revolving roster of vocalists. The main influences for this project are actual stories from the vocalists themselves, which drives the band to make powerful works that fully capture the feelings involved. While they may finish a song before it’s presented to the vocalist, they revise their arrangement and production approach to correlate the music to support the story being told. The single was self-produced, and recorded individually in Chico, CA (drums), Phoenix, AZ (guitars), and Houston, TX (bass) before vocals were added from southern New Jersey. All three core members are rhythm section players at heart – the listener can distinctly hear their love for solid foundations and infectious riffs on each track.
On the theme of the song, Silent Planet vocalist Garrett Russell has this to say:
In July of last year, I learned of the genocide that’s happening in Ethiopia, and my gut instinct was ‘how the f*** have I not heard about this?’ Whole villages of men, women and children are being slaughtered, their bodies decomposing in the sun. It really troubles me that I can share a planet with these people and have no idea that that’s going on. The drawback of our myopic focus on COVID is that there are some human rights violations that are not nearly getting the worldwide audience and chorus of people calling for change.”
“People can affect change in a lot of different ways, and I hope people hear this and want to know what’s going on there, and get involved beyond a local level. We can’t turn a blind eye to atrocities happening on this Earth right now. We’ve all been given this unique, crazy privilege of being human beings for some amount of time, and it’s our responsibility as adults on this Earth to try to do something about this as this is happening in our time.”
Murals Guitarist Shane Gann had this to add:
“This song was always meant to hit a specific emotion – sort of an intriguing type of uncomfortable – and we’re honored that Garrett was inspired by the song in such a way that allows us to bring light to such an imposing topic as the massacres going on in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.”
Murals’ overall mission is placing emphasis on the importance of community. With each single drop, proceeds will be directly donated to organizations and causes of the vocalist’s choice in an effort to give back to those who need it most. The band plans to release music consistently throughout 2022.
The single was self-produced, and recorded individually in Chico, CA (drums), Phoenix, AZ (guitars), and Houston, TX (bass) before vocals were tracked in Southern California. Mixing and mastering was completed by Kris Crummett.
Murals is Shane Gann (guitar), Tony Bautista (bass) and Blake Dahlinger (drums)
About Murals:
Murals is an exciting and innovative new project which showcases three talented instrumentalists and an ever-rotating range of vocalists. Shane Gann (guitar) met Blake Dahlinger (drums) at a shared gig in 2012 where their personalities meshed seamlessly. Shane approached Blake in 2015 to play drums for a project called Sufferer – a stand-alone album about a day in the life with anxiety & depression. Shane and Blake recruited industry friend Tony Bautista (bass) as the touring bassist for Sufferer before being invited back to be involved with Murals.
After originally considering the potential future of Sufferer, the pandemic ended up changing Blake and Shane’s trajectory when they saw a broader set of opportunities opening up with the idea of Murals. The band’s mission is to offer support to those facing challenges and injustices in our modern world by collaborating with a range of artists speaking personally on issues they themselves have been affected by. The whole idea is to have different vocalists speaking not on these topics, but from these topics, to connect most earnestly with the groups they aim to support. Murals hopes this approach will allow them to channel the love & support within the creative community to help create real progressive, social change.