I found this song too early. Like way too early.

Being an early adopter is one of the greatest joys you can have as an avid music listener and I’m not one to take that for granted, but I will also be the first to tell you that there’s a huge difference between stumbling upon han.irl when she had 20k monthly listeners and years of releases under her belt, and finding safesp8ce and she has 5k monthly listeners and 2 god damn songs.

THEY ALL DIE IN THE END is a gorgeous piece of existential dread, but do not let the title in itself deceive you (it is in caps for a reason). Drenched in reverb and delay, the scene is set with a simple verse consisting of plucked guitar and vocals telling tales of numbness and self-destruction that may be all too familiar. It’s simple in its execution with 2 very obvious focus points perfectly balancing eachother out between the plucky guitar and smooth delivery of the lead vocals. It would be easy to allow this first impression to set your expectations. Maybe this’ll be a ballad piece filled with misery and dismay, but as we approach the chorus there’s a severe shift in urgency as a kick on every beat raises the tension for what’s coming. But even with that red flag, you will not be prepared for the chorus.

This is about the part in the song where I think I verbally said “holy shit” the first time I heard it over a year ago. It’s this moment where the song goes 0-100 incredibly quick, with a strong growling bass and kick combo, selective gaps, and distorted vocals. We’re plunged into this caustic atmosphere facilitated at the breaking point of a person’s being, guided by the belted challenges of the vocals. Then with an exclamatory “who are you trying to please?” we’re met with drums that are bordering on grime inspired and a stuttering synths that feel right out of a Hollywood score. The soundscape here is huge and swallows you whole in its manic collapse. The whole thing is quite theatrical, with that feeling even being carried into the second verse as it melds the earlier guitar plucks with our newfound sense of urgency with filtered drum and bass drums. Every individual piece of this song works together in harmony to set up an expectation and then punch through it sending debris every which direction, and it does so with intense perfection. Through the hundreds of songs I’ve listened to in the past few years very few can simultaneously match the level of raw unbridled emotion being tossed around here as well as the level of polish and quality all that emotion is wrapped up into for its final presentation.

If you’ve now listened to the song and gone “oh wow that’s insane, I can’t believe this artist only has 2 releases”, then I have 2 notes to share. The first one being a simple “I told you so”, but the second being that the last I heard safesp8ce was in some sort of distribution purgatory and unable to drop new music. This in and of itself would already be a huge shame, but is compounded into a complete tragedy having heard the snippets that have been teased on instagram. The first snippet of HOW TO BE SANE was posted all the way back in March of 2024 and it has been living in my head rent free since I first heard it. All this to say “welcome to the waiting game” with me, and I hope sooner rather than later I’ll be covering as a new release.