Back in 2023, Houston-based trio Shallowater quietly released one of the most interesting debut albums of the year during the new-music lull between Christmas and New Year’s. There Is a Well introduced their unique sound marked by the soft-loud dynamic of slowcore and post-rock, with both genres trading off time in the spotlight on a few of the tracks that ran beyond the six-minute mark. It’s a formula they’ve continued to hone on their recently announced follow-up record, God’s Gonna Give You a Million Dollars, with that project’s latest single “Sadie” opening with a lightly droning post-hardcore feel until the storm clouds roll in around the two-and-a-half-minute mark—and the inclement weather really begins about a minute later.
The track is appropriately about just that, with the band noting that such weather phenomena are a significant part of life in their native Texas (I vaguely recalled “Sadie” being the name of a hurricane, but it turns out that was just an episode of Arthur). “Growing up in West Texas brings a lot of weather-related anxieties,” the trio shares. “Lubbock was completely leveled by a tornado in the ’70s, and the thought of that happening again kept me up many nights when I was a kid. I know tornadoes are pretty cliché, but telling us not to write about them would be like telling someone in California not to write about the ocean.”
Check out the track below, and pre-order the new LP here.
