The truth of modern times is something stranger than fiction. No binge-worthy serial program could ever encapsulate these extreme highs and spirit shattering lows of the contemporary condition. The current narratives of our individual realities are head spinning stories of survival, heartbreak, heartache, healing, struggles, separations, sanctuary and fleeting states of grace. This cataclysmic cyclone of societal and social calamites will be the fodder for tomorrow and today's television, cinema, sensational novellas, debated in upper division collegiate classrooms and whitewashed in the scholastic textbooks (ordained by the respective demagogues of local counties and states). Yet the people's histories of individualized experiences offer something more intimate, personal, raw realities that reach beyond the algorithms offering clickbait headline hype of celebrity obsessed tabloid histrionics and other associated ad-driven hyperbole.

Returning to the lush, raincloud corner of the pacific northwest marches the passionate, maudlin and mesmerizing pop act Death Parade. Lead by Laura Hopkins of Blackwater Holylight, the group [formerly known as Laura Palmer's Death Parade] takes you deep into the woods of a moonless night toward a transportive zone of reckoning with shadows and mirror visage representations and tulpa semblances of the self and the soul. Alongside the talents of Eirinn Lou Riggs, Danny Metcalfe and Robert Grubaugh; Hopkins and company present their ambitious new album It Was Worth It To Love, Though it Hurt So Bad courtesy of Halfshell Records that revels, rocks and roars in songs of triumph, songs of tribulation, songs of trepidation and songs of ecstatic heights. The album pulls back the red curtains from the stage to reveal poignant portraits of pain, testaments to the darkened corridors, twisted hallways and lost highways of candid tales normally reserved for esoteric folklore and nocturnal confessionals shared beneath a coal black sky like a lacy shrouded veil.

Death Parade surfaces from the depths of the undertow’s pull on the solemn backstroke paddling opener “Swimming”. Sublime desires are spilled like pint glasses, sung like a latent silhouette play acting out in the sleepless recesses of the mind’s most sentimental and sacred corners. The lowlit rouge glow of "Smoking and Safety" sashays like a pensive night spent at a roadhouse pondering the nature of security, the sanctification of the heart's most vulnerable needs, the saudade sentiments that linger within those liminal spaces between sacred bonds and the nicotine mist from the haze of a cigarette's exhaust emissions. "Thirsty Moore", employing titular wordplay that resembles the name of a certain iconic legacy NYC artist, gently rocks with a smoky atmospheric fog that materializes from the genie lamp amps like a foreboding specter of unrequited passions. Laura and the gang enter the ether of the ephemeral ambience of ennui on "Timing", with a melange of rhythms, chords and vocals that strum and hum like the mechanisms and constructs of time — ticking like a chorus of clocks.

Death Parade slows it down to the pace of a solemn funeral procession on "Somewhere to Stay" that wanders hungry like a wolf in the wild seeking shelter, sustenance and the existential pursuit of perhaps a greater purpose. The intimate candle lit glow of the group flickers and shines forth on "Side By Side" that slowly burns like a throwback 4AD ballad unearthed from the compact disc library archives of a college in the 1990s. This sentiment serenely sways with movments of grace on "Save Us" in a push toward redemption, self revival and a greater sense of safety and state of mental health. Meditations on personal limitations, boundaries and other prohibitive propositions are conveyed in the cautionary tones of "I Cannot", dearly lamented as a hymn of hesitation. Death Parade's pop aesthetic of moody chamber rock completes the cycle on "Lady of War" that is a battle call and cry of perseverence that is underscored by grumbling and growling guitar chords. The postlude begins with gradual progressions as rhythmic steps become a full scale march in the face of adversity that chalenges the body, mind, heart and soul. It Was Worth It to Love, Though It Hurt So bad is a tear streaked love letter from the depths of a broken heart that examines the will to love, the hurt that arrives with the surrender of vulnerability and the spirited commitment to personal resolve.

Death Parade’s Laura Hopkins shared some of the following insights on their creative evolution and catharsis of creating the new album:

I was an original songwriter, singer, guitarist, bassist in Blackwater Holylight for their first two albums. Death Parade was put to the side while I was touring and writing albums with them, but Death Parade has always been my soul project. Genres have shifted in my writing style over experiencing some time in a heavier atmosphere.

My first album, under the name Laura Palmer’s Death Parade released with Halfshell Records, had more of an indie dreampop feel. I feel the music has changed to blend into a more current version of the sound I would like to create. We also gained a new drummer who hits hard so it was an easy transition to heavier music.

I recorded this album on my own, mostly inside of our practice space at Red Lantern Studios. Evan Mersky recorded drums for all songs except “Save Us” and “Side by Side”. This album was a piece I had to fully be in control of. As everything in 2020/2021 was totally out of my control; recording, mixing, producing this album felt like I had a say in something. This album is a raw picture of open wounds I was trying to heal and recorded as close to a live feel as it could be. I wanted it to be a stamp of that time period.

Death Parade’s It Was Worth It To Love, Though it Hurt So Bad will be available March 14 via Halfshell Records.