Toronto band Casper Skulls have announced they’ll be releasing a second album called Knows No Kindness on November 12 through Next Door Records. The album draws largely from vocalist Melanie St-Pierre’s past, as evidenced from lead single “Thesis”, which comes with a heartwarming backstory:
“In high school, I used to write really chaotic essays for my classes,” explains St-Pierre. “I didn’t really follow the structure well because I had too many thoughts about whatever topic was handed to us. The only teacher that got a kick out of this was one of my English teachers, Mr. Dodds. One time he jokingly asked if he was going to receive the abridged thesis. That always stayed with me. Finally, I found myself feeling much more suited to poetry and creative paragraph writing when I was 18, which ultimately bred my songwriting. My introduction into this world was an accidental reading of a Robert Frost poem about 7 years earlier. A recurring theme I latched onto was his depictions of a rural winter. I grew up in similar surroundings which really inspires a lot of my creative work, and for that reason, I thrive artistically in the winter.
“I owe a lot to Mr. Dodds for allowing me to do my thing and find my own creative voice. This song is dedicated to the structurally incapable but artistically driven, and is the album’s abridged thesis.”
Casper Skulls’ shoegaze styling has evolved to a dreamier, more tactile sound, and on “Thesis” they recede to a beautifully blustering background to set the perfect scene for St-Pierre’s poetry. As the singer recalls formative moments in her life and development as a writer, the instrumental helps to glide and skate through these inchoate memories, pulling them into the vivid present, where they are held and observed in the singer’s mind and voice. “Thesis” builds into a gently cathartic chorus, where she draws upon the beauty of the frosty winter to come to a place of acceptance of her “abridged thesis”, while the untold part is her “cross to bear”. Although undoubtedly personal to St-Pierre, we can all understand that often there is a lot more that we want to say to people, but that revealing all might not serve us nor the listening ears best. Here, Casper Skulls and St-Pierre have turned their abridged thesis into an arms-wide rocker that possesses more than enough space and grace for each individual to project their own stories onto.
Watch the video, directed by Melanie St-Pierre herself, below, or find “Thesis” on streaming platforms.
Casper Skulls’ new album Known No Kindness arrives on November 12 through Next Door Records (pre-order/save). You can find the band on Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
