"Tonight, my heart is your flower / I bear a billowing spirit / Caressed into / The dim, odd hours / Tomorrow to fall apart..."
"Tonight, my heart is your flower / I bear a billowing spirit / Caressed into / The dim, odd hours / Tomorrow to fall apart..." Those words are the opening lyrics of "Surreal" by War Strings, the solo project of singer/songwriter Andrew Stogel. Read apart from the song, stunningly poetic, emotionally dark and spiraling and sonically, with Stogel's way of elucidating some words over others sustaining them to the point of making them more fragile, the whole affair on top of bass stair steps and striking guitar shapes feels beautifully melancholy.
The song, one of nine on his upcoming album "Prelude to Nothing" out March 23rd, feels dipped in a shoegaze fragrance but thankfully, you can make out Stogel's words, an important aspect considering how impactful they are. "Surreal" along with the track “They Must Want Blood,” are deeply personal highlighting the feeling of weakness following heartbreak and Stogel shares: “For the most part, this music was written as the height of my seclusion in 2020. Those two songs in particular express that confused, naïve wounded feeling concerning lost loves.”
For me "Surreal" is one of those songs that you could put on replay for hours, getting sucked into the glacial quality and for all it's somber intentions, it emotionally reverses in spots. It is hard to explain but as it bounces off your mind and heart you feel glimmers of hope shining through, even faint jubilation within the guitar shapes.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM & LINKS
https://www.facebook.com/warstringsmusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5fcFa6j43h4bLXzhrXkSkK
https://www.instagram.com/warstrings/
https://warstrings.bandcamp.com/track/surreal-2
Andrew Stogel has been through the ringer. A major head injury caused the multi-instrumentalist to be bedridden for nearly eight months; this isolation and immobility conspired to make him feel like he was on his deathbed. Through the perceptual distortion he experienced from the injury came a new musical perspective. While still stuck in bed, Stogel began the process of recording with engineers since he couldn’t look at screens and didn’t even have the strength to lift a guitar. Until then, this music existed solely in the depths of his mind. Over the course of 3 months (and mostly from his bed), Stogel made what would become War Strings’ debut record, Who Cares How It Ends. It became an amalgamation of depression, love, pain, darkness and newfound light for Stogel. Who Cares How It Ends is also representative of how Stogel wanted to approach making music and reconstructing his life: embracing imperfections and realizing that you only live once. Born in Missouri and raised in Los Angeles, Stogel has been developing his craft from a young age, fronting bands like indie-psych rock outfit Dreamer Dose and the shoegaze-tinged pop band LOVEYOU. War Strings is an evolution of those projects, but full of more life experience and a grittier sound. War Strings’ Who Cares How It Ends is a project based on persistence and passion, full of Stogel’s contemplative spirit during one of the darkest periods of his life.
https://www.facebook.com/warstringsmusic
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5fcFa6j43h4bLXzhrXkSkK
https://www.instagram.com/warstrings/
https://warstrings.bandcamp.com/track/surreal-2
Andrew Stogel has been through the ringer. A major head injury caused the multi-instrumentalist to be bedridden for nearly eight months; this isolation and immobility conspired to make him feel like he was on his deathbed. Through the perceptual distortion he experienced from the injury came a new musical perspective. While still stuck in bed, Stogel began the process of recording with engineers since he couldn’t look at screens and didn’t even have the strength to lift a guitar. Until then, this music existed solely in the depths of his mind. Over the course of 3 months (and mostly from his bed), Stogel made what would become War Strings’ debut record, Who Cares How It Ends. It became an amalgamation of depression, love, pain, darkness and newfound light for Stogel. Who Cares How It Ends is also representative of how Stogel wanted to approach making music and reconstructing his life: embracing imperfections and realizing that you only live once. Born in Missouri and raised in Los Angeles, Stogel has been developing his craft from a young age, fronting bands like indie-psych rock outfit Dreamer Dose and the shoegaze-tinged pop band LOVEYOU. War Strings is an evolution of those projects, but full of more life experience and a grittier sound. War Strings’ Who Cares How It Ends is a project based on persistence and passion, full of Stogel’s contemplative spirit during one of the darkest periods of his life.
War Strings, singer songwriter, indie rock, alt rock, dream pop, shoegaze, sonically poetic, emotionally gripping, "Surreal", project of Andrew Stogel, new album "Prelude to Nothing",
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