Oct 28, 2022

By Caleb Campbell

Italian indie outfit Eugenia Post Meridiem debuted back in 2019 with their full-length record, In Her Bones. Pulling from the worlds of soul, indie, jazz, folk, and psychedelia, the band constructed a sound full of decadent layers and unexpected textures, hitting many of the same notes as eccentric touchstones like Hiatus Kaiyote.

Next month, the band are continuing this progression with their sophomore album, like i need tension, which they’ve been teasing with their singles “willpower” and “around my neck.” Today, they’re sharing the third and final single from the record, “whisper,” premiering with Under the Radar.

The band’s latest effort takes a more subtle and swirling direction following the colorful switch-ups of “willpower” and the ornate heights of “around my neck.” In contrast, “whisper” is filled with darkly layered melodies, ebbing and flowing as they twist around Eugenia’s airy vocals, coloring them with swells of horns, subdued production touches, and chilled grooves. The band carefully crafts a winding song structure and indelible atmosphere, steadily building to the track’s climactic moment as they deliver a show-stopping guitar solo, drawing the track to an end on a final burst of color.

The band describes the track as “…. dark ballad you can dance to while wondering what could be the organic shape of despair. Conceived from a musical idea of Eugenia, we mostly focused on designing the right mood rather than overdeveloping the structures, which is the most linear and storytelling-like of the whole bundle. In order to recreate an old ballad atmosphere, we used harmonised choirs and specific sound processing and timbre choices. When the song reaches the end it drags along while Giovanni plays a heartbreaking guitar solo as if he exorcizes the nostalgia accumulated during the song; we are the musicians but we feel like a hypnotised audience.”

Check out the song below. The band’s new album, like i need tension, is out November 18th.