Features

By Bruce Hardt-Valenzuela | 10.11.2018

Photo: Junior Burdett

Safe and Sound is here to change your mind, or at least make an earnest cause in trying. Change your mind about what, you may muse. Well, in all honesty, that depends on your current mindset. To the incidental carnivore, you may be convinced that meat is gross, perhaps from both a palate and moral standpoint. Consideration may be given to the suffering that goes into your dollar menu death burger or the torture laced into your overpriced cosmetics. The dedicated vegan will doubtless find their ideals reinforced, while their ears are treated. In no uncertain terms, any listener is promised that the song premiering today is the best Safe and Sound jam you’ve yet heard — and it’s just one of ten provoking vegan straight edge cuts found on their upcoming debut full-length, Only in Death.

Featuring solemn, moving artwork by Sienna Langone, the tone of Only in Death is set merely by a first glance. Contained therein is Safe and Sound’s audible intent, a proclamation never shied away from throughout the album’s length. This punishing declaration is intoned through exacting hardcore augmented with cavernous production (courtesy of Jason McGhee), affording its Turning Point-meets-Earth Crisis sensibilities room to resound with passion and vitriol. Only in Death is purposeful, urgent music, that elusive thoughtful aggression that turns heads as much as it crushes them.

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Yet, even with all its business of skull-cracking, Safe and Sound utilize Only in Death’s candor as a tool to rewire your splattered brains with compassion for your fellow life form. “Only in Death is about things that can only be realized through death,” said vocalist Jaxon Craig on the album’s meaning. “The realization of opportunity eludes us while we, and everything, else is alive and breathing. Death is loss, and a connection to remorse. The overall meaning of the song and album title, is that only through death, pain, and suffering will we learn to value life.”

“Along with the meaning behind the title, the intent of the songs is always to take an introspective look at what we are experiencing at this point in life,” Craig added about the album’s overall themes. “Maybe a song I wrote in a dark place could help you relate and pull you out of yours. Hopefully a song about veganism or straight edge gives you a new perspective and causes you to research or educate yourself more on the topics and even considering practicing them. I’m not going to lie, ultimately our goal as a band is to get people to go vegan.”

Photo: Zane Grey

Only in Death is the most compelling argument Safe and Sound has made yet, with its tracks brimming with anthemic straight edge glory, vegan standard-bearing and their discography’s most assured songwriting. “As far as this record goes, especially compared to anything we’ve done before, I think we finally found what we all want to sound like together,” said Craig when asked how Only in Death compared to their back catalog. “All of us push and pull in different directions, have wildly different influences and preferences of our own, and feel differently about previous releases. We all challenged each other and ourselves (and our sound engineer) in writing and recording this record and I’m incredibly happy with how it turned out. This, I think, is the first time we’ve all been really satisfied and confident with 100% of a release and I’m really excited to have people hear it.”

Only in Death will be available digitally and for pre-order through New Age Records in November. Do the right thing and pick it up. Go vegan!

Tagged: safe and sound