Baldy Crawlers serve a quietly powerful Protest song with "Hatred?"
Some songs raise their voice to make a point, and some choose the opposite path, letting restraint do all the heavy lifting instead. "Hatred?" by Baldy Crawlers falls firmly into that second category, and it's all the more powerful for it. This is a contemporary folk song built around a simple but devastating question: what does it cost a person to be asked to hate someone else simply because they've been told to? The rest of the song speaks volumes in the beautiful way it was crafted!
The song opens with a wonderfully picked acoustic guitar solo that really sets the tone in a lush way. You get sucked into the instrumental portion before those vocals come in and change everything about the song. It’s like a calm before the storm, though the “storm” is more outstanding vocals that leave you hanging on every word.
Musically, the track is largely stripped back and vocal forward for much of its runtime, letting the words carry the story without much clutter. That choice makes the moments where the arrangement does build feel even more impactful. About halfway through, the instrumentation opens up suddenly, with subtle cello work weaving in, the stomps and clamps of their feet emanating drums, and a picked acoustic guitar adding real texture underneath. It's a patient build that mirrors the emotional arc of the lyrics themselves. We honestly felt like the whole song was suspenseful in the way it was arranged as a whole.
The story behind Baldy Crawlers only adds to the depth here. What started as a project from luthier and Berklee graduate Martin Maudal to showcase his handmade guitars has grown into something much bigger, a full musical collective built on genuine collaboration. With Elizabeth Hangan and Norrell Thompson's vocals leading the way, alongside Maudal's own guitars and voice, Marc Weller's pedal steel, Carl Byron's keys and accordion, Ross Schodek on bass, and José Perez on percussion…this is a group of musicians who know how to serve a song rather than overpower it. With so many individuals in the mix, you’d think that things would begin to sound overwhelming, yet the song is as easygoing as it could be.
We sincerely thought "Hatred?" was a genuinely beautiful piece of songwriting, lyric forward and deeply emotional once you actually listen to the words. It asks a hard question and trusts its listeners to sit with the answer rather than spelling it out. In a moment where so much music reaches for volume to make its point, Baldy Crawlers remind us of the immense power in the patience!
We loved it, so please, go ahead and click those links below to listen in, follow along, and of course to stay tuned for hopefully so much more on the way.
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