Sadness & Complete Disappointment - News

SADNESS & COMPLETE DISAPPOINTMENT
Release new single ‘High’, fuelled by the pain of addiction

Harbingers of doom and gloom (but also massive tunes) Sadness & Complete Disappointment complete their new trilogy of tracks today with the release of ‘High’. Vocalist and drummer Esmee Baker explains the background of the single: “High was a painful song to write. I knew it was a topic I wanted to sing about, but it was a hard place to go to in my brain. For a long time I had wanted to write a song about the dangerous situations you can find yourself in, and the advantage that is so often taken of you, when you have substance abuse issues, especially as (but not exclusively being) a woman. I’ve struggled a lot with addiction and spent years hiding it from people in what I referred to as my “real life” - I hid it from my colleagues, my friends, my family, and would go and get massively fucked up with virtual strangers so as not to let that side of my life impact anyone who cared about me. This meant that when I was in a dangerous situation, I had no one around me that could step in, the only people about were other fuck ups. I didn’t know these people, I didn’t know their intentions, and predictably, they didn’t ever have a shred of compassion or a second thought of what I might want or need. It was all very - ‘if she didn’t want this, she shouldn’t have gotten so fucked up.’ This song is a snapshot of a moment in my life. I was in a failing relationship so my home life was bleak, and the escape I had was drugs. I’d go out and find myself the next day with flashes of men looming over me, grotesque encounters and inexplicable injuries. And then, to delve deeper into the misery of the circumstance - if I had the nerve to complain about the situations I found myself in, people would often dismiss them as the results of my own choices. That my crying or my whining won’t help a thing - it won’t fix the problem. As if quitting morphine, coke or alcohol was as easy as falling off a log for the chronically depressed. It’s a miserable song with no real conclusion - a long tunnel with no light at the end of it. Unfortunately I think it’s a story a lot of people can relate to and I hope that it can provide some kind of catharsis for anyone who’s been in the same dark and lonely place.”

The “B” of the EP ‘BARB’ features a delicate and atmospheric overture of falsetto vocals gives way to a magnificent riff-edged finale. And the first single of the collection - ‘GRIP’ - is “a track about the internal struggle of being a creative soul living in this capitalist hellscape” and came with an intoxicating yet hellish roadtrip of a music video. Baker says of the EP as a whole, “We are all crushed by depression pretty much day in and day out, and this EP is apparently what happens when you put four people who are really sick of living in one room together with some instruments they can just about play. Thematically, very on brand, our main thing is sadness - but with a glimmer of hope (which will inevitably at some point lead to disappointment). The first producer we approached essentially said we were too shit to tarnish his name with, but this ended up being a blessing in disguise as Will from Goliath Sound took us on and was a total dreamboat.” Sadness & Complete Disappointment released their debut EP, the ironically titled ‘FUN.’, in 2021, having formed through a sharing of intense self doubt and abject misery. Since then, there’s been a bit of a line-up shake-up and three have become four. This arrangement is all the better to manifest their intricate soundscapes layering dark, grooving bass riffs, melancholy-soaked guitar, hazy soprano vocals and an overall feeling of heavy. The band are an audio powerhouse to the highest degree, snatching old school aesthetics and crafting classic elements in creative, new ways.