Decant Offer a Forlorn Tribute to a Late Friend on New Single "Passing"

Decant returns as spellbinding as ever on their new song “Passing,” a poignant ode to a late friend of the band and fellow artist Corey Budke. It’s also the latest preview of their forthcoming EP — one that’s been slowly unveiled over the last year with singles like “Beverly” (feat. Kosie) and “Take Them.” More recently the Bay Area four-piece shared a performance of their recent single “Offshore” recorded from atop a suitably stunning rooftop vista.

The new single continues to paint the band as enchanting converters of grandiose emotion into engrossing sound. Guided by the dolorous words of frontperson and vocalist Freddie Bytheway, “Passing” explores with raw tenderness the ways in which love and addiction are seamlessly entwined. “Never over / Never sober,” they murmur against doleful waves of electronica. “You know I want to / Life is so short.”

Engrained in the track’s haunting and hypnotic atmospherics is a homage to Budke — who passed in February 2013. Before he did though, Decant keyboardist/guitarist Joey Verdian helped him record a number of original pieces of music. “Passing” emphasizes the band’s entwinement with Budke in featuring both lyrics and samples of vocals from his song “Solace.”

The result is a soundscape that travails the colossal highs and sullen lows of human emotion. One whose thrumming and entrancing melody mirrors the cyclical traps laid by addiction. From a lush but hazy euphoria to a pensive melancholy, their new song wanders with icy clarity through a desolate and isolated landscape. Bytheway’s forlorn words resounding with fading warmth: “Empty and deep / Are the thoughts that I think / Still hard to keep / My heart slow to the beat.”