There comes a moment in the mad rush of adult life where everything seems to be moving at such breakneck speed that you can’t tell what would get thrown off-balance if you switched pace. There’s the inertia of emotion, no time to process, and a final moment where everything just stops.
Bengaluru indie outfit Black Letters have managed to tap into that very feeling. Their latest album, Still As You, released through local label Overfeed Records is the culmination of that break in momentum, manifesting itself like a much-needed pause; a validation of what a lot of people feel in their 20s.
The Black Letters’ earliest experiments fused elements of both alt-rock and punk music and birthed their first album Shapes On The Wall. Their songwriting process matured soon after, culminating in the too-short but very tasteful dream pop EP Petrichor that came out in late 2015. Which brings us back to their most evolved work yet – 2019’s Still As You – an album that displays the band’s metamorphosis throughout its composition.
The Black Letters took their time with Still As You and wrapped up all of it in three years. It helps that they’ve known each other since kindergarten.
Until recently, the band comprised Sarang Menon, Sharath Narayan, Akash Chacko and Arjun Radhakrishnan. But in 2019, after bassist Radhakrishnan left for Germany, his duties were taken up by another friend of the band, Jeevan Antony.
Black Letters
© Abheet Anand
Still As You is anchored by a heavily-textured sound palette that feels right at home in The Black Letters’ shoegazing-alt-rock-meets-indie-dream-pop soundscape, and makes for an engaging listen all the way through. I caught up with Sharath Narayan and Sarang Menon, who were happy to talk with me on behalf of the band.
“There was a time in 2018 when we were close to wrapping up the album, and I felt like a few songs just didn’t click,” said the duo. “So, we sat down and without bothering to discuss more, decided not to have them in the album. We started making new tracks right away. We thought the album was done, but after that point, we were only halfway there. That’s when we wrote ‘Break Into’, ‘Not A Thing’ and ‘Dripping’.”
There’s something to be said for going back to the drawing board, acknowledging your art isn’t quite there yet, and having the courage to start from scratch. It could very well be the reason Still As You sounds like a more relevant and polished piece of work. Take the track ‘Landscaper’ for example. Popping up like magic halfway through the album, its beats feel like they’re coursing through your veins; its cinematic vocals haunting you slowly. Like some of the best bits of pop, ‘Landscaper’ does a whole lot in a short period. “What made you follow, and got you hollow?” it asks, imploring you to look deeper within.
Still As You’s lead single, the surreptitiously named ‘Some Do, Some Don’t’ kicks off with some neat, angular drumming before a distorted, saturated bass line drives it towards its melodic breakdown. Then, there’s the mournful ‘In My Senses’, accompanied by a surreal music video that features the band members travelling in time to save a distraught Anarkali and delivering her to her lover. It’s a track layered with the kind of hopeful-hopelessness that Black Letters’ fans are familiar while also managing to sound new and interesting.
Menon, who saw a major life change with the birth of his child during the course of making Still As You, offers some insight. “Earlier we tried controlling things both creatively and in our personal lives,” he says. “But now, we feel the best way to navigate is by staying still and being open to the journey. Making this album brought out more emotions than we thought we could contain. We didn’t know what it was about until the end, and it made sense like clear, still water.”
For Narayan, it was having a clearer definition about what story to tell. “I think Petrichor was more about appreciation and love, and to me, it didn’t have a solid arc like we have in Still As You, which has been a lot about the courage to dig deeper and tell a story that was waiting to come out,” he admits. “The evolution of our music was in a lot of ways due to individually becoming more mature about music, cinema, visual art and literature, and life in general.”
In all that it tries to do, Still As You sets a pretty high bar for storytelling in alternative music. It’s as raw and honest in its emotion as it is sleek in its production. But most of all, it defines a period of growing up that is densely layered with moments and memories and manages to condense them into a suite of genre-defying songs. It sets a mood for the journey but also compels you to stay still and listen before it’s time to start moving again.