Equal Vision Records and shallow pools are excited to announce the release of I Think About It All The Time, the Boston-based indie-pop band’s debut album (stream/purchase HERE). Featuring songs co-written with LGBTQIA+ icon Lynn Gunn of PVRIS and Cameron Walker-Wright of Twin XL and The Ready Set, I Think About It All The Time is a record that paints a vivid picture of the dystopian times we find ourselves in in 2023 — both in general, but especially in the USA if you’re a marginalized community.
It’s that unavoidable setting that dictated both the tone and the themes of this album, but also which propelled the band — all of whom are close friends who live together — to rally against the discrimination and oppression which seems to be becoming more and more a part of everyday life. “I feel like we always want to make some kind of statement,” says vocalist Glynnis Brennan, “and we wanted to write something that basically said ‘Fuck the haters’. As members of the LGBQIA+ community, this just feels really important to us.”
shallow pools isn’t just a band. Rather, it’s four people who feel a compulsion to react to the state of the world around them and weave those emotions and their ideas into their songs to make a point. And while the Boston-based four-piece — drummer Ali Ajemian, vocalist Glynnis Brennan, guitarist Jess Gromada and bassist Haley Senft — often write about their own deeply personal struggles with mental health, they’re also never afraid to point out injustice when they see it.
The band’s fiery attitude and lyrics sometimes are at odds with its music, but that’s a contradiction shallow pools love to explore when they write songs. It’s not just an individual hallmark of the 10 tracks that make up I Think About It All The Time, but one that can be extended to the album as a whole. The thing that’s being thought of constantly, you see, is, as Ajemian succinctly puts it “not great stuff,” and it permeates every fiber of this record. “It’s kind of a concept album—almost,” laughs Ajemian. “But when we listened back to it, we realized it was less an end of the world album than just all the different things that consumed us, whether that’s environmental or external or internal things.”
Recorded at Reclaim Studios in Thompson, CT with Chris Curran, it’s an album that truly highlights just how much and how far the band has come since starting out playing together as friends in school about a decade ago, then forming shallow pools five or so years later. Listen, for instance, to the melancholy pop-punk-with-a-twist of “Dead Ends” or the lush, ’80s-inspired atmospherics of “Golden,” which marries emotional fragility with instrumentation that Bryan Adams in his prime would be both proud and jealous of.
As much as I Think About It All The Time was inspired by the end of the world, and as much as the band say the catharsis they needed from it didn’t really materialize, it nevertheless exists as a tangible, physical beacon of hope and defiance for those who listen to it. “The most important thing to me,” says Brennan, “is making people feel safe and comfortable. I know that’s something that I looked for when I was younger.”
Brennan adds, “Hopefully this album will give us the opportunity to play in front of more people because that’s my favorite part of all this. Because then you get to talk to people face to face and they can tell you what it means to them. And that gets me crying.”
shallow pools will be making the following appearance in 2023. Information below with more dates to be announced soon.
OCTOBER
22 – Somerville, MA – Crystal Ballroom (“Pool Party”/I Think About It All The Time album release show. Tickets available HERE.