Maryland trio Pinkshift are thrilled to announce their new album ‘Earthkeeper’. The record arrives August 29th via Hopeless Records. The band has also shared the video for the new single ‘Anita Ride.’ The song follows the release of ‘Evil Eye.’
The song opens with a thesis statement: ‘I carried all this weight on my own, for so long, it became my own…It wasn’t my burden to bear I know, It wasn’t my burden to bear alone, and I carried it all the way home.'”
“It’s essentially a release, a reminder, a cathartic moment to give yourself permission to share the weight that you feel in the moments you feel heavy with grief with others and give yourself credit for everything you have done,” states singer Ashrita Kumar. “I felt like this song was a moment where we all very obviously, as a band, shed our old skin. This is the first track you hear guitarist Paul Vallejo and Myron Houngbedji singing prominently on a track — we are all intentionally united. I found my roar. What made me more powerful in this moment was leaning into losing control, leaning into trusting my community, and leaning into the uncertainty and chaos that are the transitions of life.”
Kumar continues: “The second verse was inspired by Kendrick Lamar for me. I wanted to channel the way that he talks to his higher self in his greatest moment of self-doubt, because self-doubt is the enemy of creativity. The feeling that I have less is the enemy of my prosperity.”
During a pit stop while travelling between shows in 2023, Pinkshift found a huge fallen redwood tree. Vocalist Ashrita Kumar, guitarist Paul Vallejo, and drummer Myron Houngbedji lay down on the trunk, staring up at the canopy of leaves from the trees around them. What followed is an experience Kumar describes as almost psychedelic. They felt as if the trees were inviting them to stay there forever. “I heard these voices telling me that I’m welcome here,” they recall. “And everything I could ever want is in this space.”
‘Earthkeeper’ is a record that bursts at the seams with big riffs, big feelings, and big ideas. At its core is a spiritual being whose name gives the record its title — “a reflection of universal consciousness and a protector of existence.” It’s a patchwork of anxiety, angst, grief, and hope, juggling experiences both personal and existential across themes such as loss, one’s individual purpose, and what it means to watch the notion of a stable life collapse before your eyes.
‘Earthkeeper’ tracklist:
01. Love It Here
02. Anita Ride
03. Evil Eye
04. Don’t Fight
05. Patience
06. Spiritseeker
07. Blood
08. Freefall
09. Suspended
10. Reflection
11. Vacant
12. Something More