Sinai Vessel, the currently-solo project of Caleb Cordes, is releasing a new album called Ground Aswim at the end of this month, and he recently shared the contemplative “Guest In Your Life”. Today he returns with another taster of the new record, which again tackles a complex emotional topic – but this time it’s all interior.
Cordes explains that “Shameplant” is “one of several songs on the record written in hopes of taking an unsavory quality of mine to task. This one is particularly about an imbalance of intentionality and emotional labor in my relationships — an imbalance that, as a cisgender man, I’d long been socialized to not notice, and had been complicit in perpetuating. It’s about realizing that growth and growing up requires action, and that accounting for ways I could do better is a continual practice — much like the “gardening” that takes place in the song.”
“Shameplant” begins simply enough with some poised guitar strums, but as Cordes opens with the lines “I love you with every part of me / save for the part of me that does not / it’s the part of me that’s always wondering what I could get / with what I’ve got,” he’s letting us know that this is not easy listening, and we should brace for impact. As he stares down his impulse to think outside his relationship, “Shameplant” starts to build with drums and tinkling pianos and comparisons to Death Cab For Cutie seem stronger than ever. Even as he promises to commit fully to his love, Cordes doesn’t let himself off the hook so easily, and the song starts to buck with emotion and determination, moving down winding reflections of his youthful indiscretions. Eventually, “Shameplant” explodes into a sonically cathartic finale as he reprimands himself: “it’s one thing to act on / and another to just believe.”
Sinai Vessel’s new album Ground Aswim is out on October 30 and can be pre-ordered from the band’s Bandcamp. Find Sinai Vessel on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
