Grieve humanity’s lost promise through Baldy Crawlers’ folk-sermon release, ‘Hatred?’ –

From Claremont, California, Baldy Crawlers create folk sermons your soul has been silently screaming for. Led by luthier, producer and Berklee College of Music graduate Martin Maudal, whose handmade guitars gave the project its first spark, the collective turned their latest single, Hatred? into a solemn, humanity-starved release built from lived-in musicianship and social conscience.

Through Hatred?, Baldy Crawlers summon an atmosphere that instantly makes your eyes feel raw with emotion. All the arcane touches in the production amplify the evocative weight in the lyrical narrative, which has a beguiling way of recontextualising the fragments of memory, anxiety and perception lingering on the surface of your consciousness.

As a cry for humanity lost, as a solemn acknowledgement of the myriad traumas that become monuments within society that only we can see, Hatred? becomes a plea to stop allowing hatred to prevail in the White House and on the streets. The folk arrangement carries Americana weathering, Latin-rooted instrumental richness and chamber-shadowed gravity without letting the message slip into heavy-handedness.

Fans of Leonard Cohen’s sermon-dark lyricism, Nick Cave’s moral theatre and the social conscience of classic protest folk will find all the right emotional coordinates here. Ultimately, Hatred? is a darkly cathartic affirmation that it is okay to grieve the world we could have been living in, rather than the theatre of oppression we’re within.

Hatred? is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Bandcamp, where you can download the single to support the artist.

Review by Amelia Vandergast