Highwind pay the price for love in their blistering new single and stylish video At What Cost — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
The latest release from the Moose Jaw post-hardcore / emo-punk outfit’s EP Final Words, At What Cost explains the price of humankind’s most precious emotion. Rich with the outrage and frustration that form the beating heart of punk, vocalist Chase Rysavy unleashes his own tribulations onto the track.
“At What Cost is a song about being with someone that makes you feel alone,” the band explain. “No matter how hard you try to grasp onto them and fix things, it always seems to be wrong.”
The single fits neatly into the larger theme of the Final Words EP. Rysavy’s original idea for the project was to examine the dark aftermath of love. Ultimately, everyone who puts themselves out there will be crushed. It is an inevitability that grief will follow after attaching oneself to someone or something, because it will one day be taken from you, one way or another. This is the cost of love.
That displays itself openly in At What Cost, particularly in the track’s bridge, performed intensely by drummer and second vocalist Troy Waggoner:
“You’re breaking my heart
My meaning is lost
If love is the prize
Then grief is the cost.”
Final Words is not Highwind’s first project — in 2016, the band self-released Cellar Door, a full-length recorded live off the floor at Regina’s Blue Door Studios. It went on to be chosen as one of Sask Music’s Best Albums of 2016 — not bad for their first release with lead guitarist Ehren Pfeifer. Working remotely from Toronto, Pfeifer recorded all his parts having never played live with Rysavy, Waggoner and bassist Eric Taylor. That’s actually nothing new for Highwind. The band began in 2014, with Rysavy, Taylor, and Waggoner collaborating long distance. Nine years later, they are ready to level up and make a national splash.
Watch the video for At What Cost above, listen to Final Words below, and follow Highwind on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
