Last month, LA's John Errol made an ominous return with "Float," his first new music since his 2021 album Inferno. Now, he's announcing a new record called Damage, arriving this fall. The second single "Shifting Sands" is out today, and it's a cinematic, towering power ballad that nears eight minutes.
"A lot of this record is obsessed with the past, how it mangles the present, and the stories we tell ourselves about it," Errol explains. "'Shifting Sands' is about being cast as the villain in someone else's story when you're denied the chance to tell your own. I wrote it driving home on the 10 one night, screaming into my phone like a voicemail I never got to leave, failing to understand a reality that was constantly changing. Am I the villain or the victim? Probably both. And to mimic that whiplash, the song vacillates between composure and hurt, quiet and shrill, until the outro muffles the whole thing into nothing but a memory."
Errol wrote, performed, mixed, and mastered Damage by himself, and he's self-releasing it through his imprint, Stupidity Tries, whose name is a nod to Elliott Smith. Meanwhile, the Damage cover artwork is a reference to Taxi Driver. "Shifting Sands," though, has the haunting, hypnotic beauty of Ethel Cain at her most interesting. Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Winner"
02 "Float"
03 "Damage"
04 "Simon Says"
05 "Allison"
06 "Turn off the light"
07 "What's needed of me"
08 "Shifting Sands"
09 "No Good"
10 "Lake Travis"
11 "Loser"
12 "Like it like that"
13 "God Today"
Damage is out 10/30 on Errol's own Stupidity Tries imprint.
