Eliza Shaddad returns with the blistering "Wars" from her upcoming EP

09 November 2015, 15:30 | Written by Jon Putnam

(Tracks)

(Eliza Shaddad)

My final words rang with hope last summer when Eliza Shaddad released her Waters EP that we’d see a full-length sometime soon. Well, not so, yet that minor bad news is triumphantly quashed by the good news that Shadded is back with “Wars,” her lead single from her just announced Run EP.

Where the simmering folk-rock of Waters had proved an ample leap in songwriting and arrangement from her quiet folk roots, “Wars” indicates Shaddad is surging just as far beyond that point with Run.

Dialing up the distortion and general heft of her band’s sound, Shaddad cloaks her vocals in a light glaze of reverb, offering a measured, breathy vocal counterpoint to her dense accompaniment.

Her new sound which, she says, is “best unleashed loud,” is a natural evolution borne from both the seething embers of her lyrical content and a conscious push toward a harsher sound:

"Lyrically there are some fairly damning things on this EP so the subject matter was what started giving things a new harshness, and what I think ultimately underpins it all. I was starting to play harder and really dig into overdrive and distortion…while we never set out to change direction, from the off with these songs everything felt rawer than before."

Shaddad’s Run EP is set to release in early 2016; till then, get an early taste by streaming “Wars” below.