Ahead of the release of his highly-anticipated new full length Hitchens on Friday, Hussey (All Get Out frontman Nathan Hussey’s solo project) premiered Runner Up today with The Alternative. On Runner Up, Nathan’s delicate vocals combine with a reverb-soaked electric guitar to follow a classic four-four beat kept steady on a lone kickdrum, creating one of the most intimate moments on Hitchens. Thus, Hussey has succeeded in creating the perfect soundscape for one of the few tracks on the album on which he looks inward rather than writing from an observational point-of-view. As we saw on Stateside and All Things; this latest single is a shining example of the beauty in simplicity. As Nathan points out regarding Runner Up ‘musically it was nice to step out of the normal structure of a song. It just kind of bookends itself open and shut and is, hopefully, easily digestible for the first time listener’. Listen now on YouTube or Spotify.
Thematically, Hitchens is an observation on the Human Condition interpreted through personal experiences. It draws largely from the life and suffering of it’s namesake; the catalytic author and orator, Christopher Hitchens. However, it was not so much Hitchen’s politics that Hussey found inspiration in, but his intelligence, the veracity with which he supported his beliefs, his constant quest for personal evolution and, most of all, his life story. According to Hussey, the record is ‘more about the impact of someone not only in my life but in the pseudo-fiction used to represent how we feel about another person. Sometimes a character says it better than you ever could’.
Hitchens will be Hussey’s first release on Equal Vision Records. Along with the announcement that he will be putting out his solo project with Equal Vision came word that we can expect the highly-anticipated follow up to All Get Out’s 2016 release Nobody Likes A Quitter with the legendary alternative rock label next year as well. In his new label, Hussey believes he has found a ‘warm and cozy home’. A look at Equal Vision’s track record of helping artist’s push their creative boundaries would indicate that Hussey will indeed find himself with the opportunity to continue building on his well-deserved reputation as one of the most innovative songwriters in modern rock.