From the depths of York’s grey-walled gothic melancholy, Garrow Hill rise with ‘We Are All But Nothing’. This is music for the witching hour, built on riffs that rumble like collapsing cathedrals and lyrics that whisper like long-buried secrets.
Stew King and PG Branton aren’t dabbling in darkness- they’re steeped in it. This isn’t alt-rock flirting with edge for the sake of aesthetics. It’s doom-spun poetry, carved out of northern stone and left to rot in candlelight. ‘We Are All But Nothing’ is the sort of track that starts in your headphones and ends up etched somewhere deeper. Heavy, yes- but not just in volume. It’s heavy in presence. In emotional density.
There’s a grim theatricality here too, channelling the likes of Ghost or even a bloodied Bauhaus. But beneath the drama is an urgent core of sincerity. The guitar work moves with purpose: a searing, ritualistic churn that nods toward Iron Maiden’s melodicism while dragging the weight of sludge and death metal behind it like a funeral cart. Branton’s drumming, meanwhile, thuds with inevitability.
Vocally, King delivers with a kind of haunted command, his voice perched somewhere between preacher and revenant, while Branton’s backing adds a spectral echo- like a memory of a voice you forgot you lost. Together, they build something monolithic, but curiously tender in its vulnerability. You feel the dread, but you also feel the ache.
The band circles big questions with grave intent. ‘We Are All But Nothing’ isn’t nihilism for show, it’s a slow burn that asks what it means to exist in a world where everything is crumbling, but the ghosts still dance. The single artwork- a wax skull dissolving into shadow- tells you all you need to know: even death here is theatrical, slow, and strangely elegant.
There’s something unmistakably English about Garrow Hill’s brand of despair. Not just in geography, but in tone- like Nick Cave relocated to Yorkshire and started trading riffs with early Paradise Lost. They don’t aim for sleek modernity. Their sound is feral, unpolished, and proudly out of step.
‘We Are All But Nothing’ isn’t trying to be everything. It’s trying to be true. It’s a slow dirge for those drawn to decay, a love letter to the beautifully broken, and a torch song for the ones who still find comfort in the dark.
Play it loud. Play it alone. Let it echo.