SOUL GLO "Diaspora Problems" LP

Late December 2020 found Soul Glo holed away in an unfinished warehouse, beginning to find drum tones for their upcoming full length, Diaspora Problems. They had just begun to accept that they would be in talks with Epitaph Records, and that it was likely they were going to go with the label as they hadn’t even begun to reach a place where they could consider shopping it to other record labels. Working with Epitaph was far and away the best case scenario that the band could’ve hoped for, but they simultaneously wondered if the label had any understanding of what they were getting into.

From 2016 to 2021, Soul Glo conceptualized and produced Diaspora Problems nearly completely alone. The demo and tracking process was handled exclusively by the band’s bassist GG and engineer/close friend Evan Bernard. The final tracks were recorded in that same unfinished warehouse and the band’s practice space during the hottest parts of summer 2021.

Thematically, Diaspora Problems is a simple analysis of where Soul Glo currently finds themselves: poised to leap into their future, for better or worse, with nothing but their life experience and lessons learned to communicate, and only each other to rely on. Lyrically, the album deals with analyses of the music industry as it exists through the eyes of people who are experiencing it for the first time. Aside from that, the concepts explored include an artist and individuals’ self-doubt and self-hate, past traumas that can only be worked out in adulthood, financial instability and how it affects an artist, the effects of institutional and state violence, and the power of community that delivered Soul Glo through each struggle the band has endured from their inception and before.

Diaspora Problems is only the beginning of what will undoubtedly be a bright future for Soul Glo, as well as a forecast for what the band is capable of musically. Hardcore punk is at the precipice of a sonic revolution as a higher variance of people find room for themselves and the expression of their lived experience within the genre. More and more people will be injecting a cultural identity and offering a narrative previously unheard and/or underappreciated by punk rockers and kindred spirits the world over. Diaspora Problems is not aiming to be the only album like it that exists, but instead one of many entries in a new dawn for rock music.

Tracklist:
01. Gold Chain Punk (whogonbeatmyass?)
02. Coming Correct Is Cheaper
03. Thumbsucker
04. Fucked Up If True
05. Jump!! (Or Get Jumped!!!)((by the future))
06. Driponomics (ft. Mother Maryrose)
07. (Five Years And) My Family
08. The Thangs I Carry (ft. Bearcat)
09. We Wants Revenge
10. John J (ft. Kathryn Edwards and Zula Wildheart)
11. GODBLESSYALLREALGOOD
12. Spiritual Level Of Gang Shit (ft. Mckinley Dixon and Lojii)