Grayscale Comes Out Of The Shadows To Announce Third Studio Album And New Single
Philly pop-punk proteges and kings of acting cryptic, Grayscale, are coming back into the scene to announce a new era. This new era announcement came with a select group of fans previously receiving cryptic texts and random postcards mentioning the word “Umbra '' with absolutely zero context. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘umbra’ as “a conical shadow excluding all light from a given source, specifically: the conical part of the shadow of a celestial body excluding all light from the primary source.” How does this relate to new Grayscale? Yesterday afternoon, the band announced via social media, “Step into Umbra with us tonight at 11:45 pm EST. Live Q&A + music video premiere. Link in bio.” Today, July 22, the band brought to light a new era, featuring new single, “Dirty Bombs” and their third studio album Umbra. Umbra is expected to drop on August 27, 2021-- just about one month away.
Fifteen minutes before the music video premiere, vocalist Collin Walsh took to the Grayscale YouTube channel to hype up the new album as well as answer questions that the fans asked via the comments. The Q&A featured several questions ranging in topics from the upcoming album, the freshly dropped single, Sad Summer, and even duck-sized horses. Soon after, viewers were brought to Fearless Records to be the very first fans to watch the new music video.
“Dirty Bombs” is an alternative rock track with a theme centered on shadows-- both metaphorically and physically. In the music video directed by Jordan Mizrahi, the concept of shadows is shown with unique lighting all throughout, physically tying into the meaning of the word umbra. The lyrics take a more metaphorical approach. As Collin stated in the Q&A livestream, “Lyrically Dirty Bombs is a song about being yourself. It’s a song about individualism and not wanting to be a certain way or perceived a certain way for other people, but really being in yourself.” Walsh continued to say, “It focuses on intent and how intent can sometimes be more wicked than it comes off on the surface. And I think that deep cold core is the kind of motif that you see floating throughout everything.” Instrumentally, Grayscale really came into their own, producing the best guitar riffs seen from the band thus far. Everything from the timing of the drums to the bomb bass lines and a more than satisfying guitar solo melted together to make one badass way to kick off the new era with a bang. Vocally, I was captivated and enthralled by every word Collin was singing. The album itself has themes of conflict including a man vs self and man vs nature throughout the entire record. According to Walsh, “If I could put Umbra into one category I think Alternative would just be the umbrella [term].” As for what to expect for the other tracks? Only time will tell.
If you thought Grayscale was done dropping bombshells then you thought wrong. Always keeping us on our toes, Grayscale released a new merch line to go along with Umbra. As with every merch line the band produces, these items will not be restocked, so quickly jump on their site and grab what you want before your favorite item becomes sold out. You can watch the music video on YouTube and stream this strong new single on all streaming platforms.