Release Date July 10th, 2026
Format Digital/CD/Vinyl
Genre Gothic Rock
Origin USA
Wailin Storms began in Texas under vocalist and rhythm guitarist Justin Storms, passed through New York City, and eventually settled in Durham, North Carolina. Drummer Mark Oates and bassist Steve Stanczyk joined in 2014, with lead guitarist Ben Melton arriving after the band’s fourth album, "The Silver Snake Unfolds". Melton also handles backing vocals, Rhodes organ and piano. Debut full-length "One Foot In The Flesh Grave" appeared in 2015, followed by "Sick City" in 2017 and "Rattle" in 2020. Years of touring across the United States and Europe brought the band before audiences drawn from post-hardcore, sludge, doom and post-rock circles.
Across those releases, blues-punk abrasion became tangled with Southern gothic rock, old Baptist hymn shapes and the bleak atmosphere of rural American fiction. Justin Storms’ upbringing as the son of a church pianist and Baptist preacher left religious imagery buried deep within the writing, while his early attraction to outsider rock took the music far beyond church walls. "The Arsonist" is the band’s fifth full-length and its first release through Season Of Mist.
Tracked fully analog at Earth Analog in May 2025, "The Arsonist" was produced and engineered by Matt Talbott, mixed by Mike Lust and Dave Downham, then mastered by Downham. Across nine songs, sideways guitar riffs, tom-heavy drumming, a firm bass pulse and Justin Storms’ grave baritone bind blues-punk friction to Southern gothic dread. The production leaves guitar edges frayed and drum hits blunt; spill between parts adds physical heat, although the lower register occasionally turns cloudy when the arrangements swell.Tracked fully analog at Earth Analog in May 2025, "
The Arsonist" was produced and engineered by Matt Talbott, mixed by Mike Lust and Dave Downham, then mastered by Downham. Across nine songs, sideways guitar riffs, tom-heavy drumming, a firm bass pulse and Justin Storms’ grave baritone bind blues-punk friction to Southern gothic dread. The production leaves guitar edges frayed and drum hits blunt; spill between parts adds physical heat, although the lower register occasionally turns cloudy when the arrangements swell.
Rhodes organ on "Heart Of Mine", tolling piano and the crooked riff beneath "The Wind" expand the palette, adding ghostly color to an album largely built from primitive chords and deliberate pacing. Justin Storms’ lyrics deal in desire, anxiety, death, faith and doomed romance, using burning houses, damaged bodies, empty churches and nightmare visions as recurring images.
The words stay plain and bleak, rarely explaining their surreal scenes, which lets lines from "Dead End" and "It’s All Dark Now Where Your Eyes Used To Be" linger after the final note. Several refrains circle longer than needed, and the central stretch settles too often into the same swaying tempo; a tighter edit there would make the climaxes more severe. "The Arsonist" remains a feverish, human album with bruised guitars, spectral keys and enough emotional heat to leave a scar.
|7.5
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