New Jersey alt rockers Shutter have been on a reckoning mission in recent years. The four-piece were separately, and collectively, starting to feel that things were falling apart around them. The toll was mounting as they watched family members broken by the passing of loved ones, and experienced the tragic loss of friends to drugs. Faith, in all its forms, was taking a beating.

With today’s release of the single “What I Think I Follow”, Shutter usher in a new era. Gone are the introspective explorations of personal relationships that typified the band’s output up until this point. In their place are grand reflections that reach far beyond the personal.

“What I Think I Follow” finds the band giving voice to singer/guitarist Jonni Correa’s realization that “I’ve lived my whole life thinking it was all about me… but I’m just a grain of sand in the world”. The result is a raging cut of alt rock that serves as a striking introduction to Shutter’s upcoming EP Above Us All. That EP (also announced today) documents a quest to make sense of who, or what, is out there. If the religious teachings of youth are not true, then how do we understand the world beyond us? As such, Above Us All delivers a five-song collection that harnesses crunching grooves and soaring vocals as it travels through tales from mental health lows, to building self-reliance, to questioning the lessons of childhood, and making peace with your place in the universe.

 

Shutter have also shared a video to accompany “What I Think I Follow”. The visual playfully juxtaposes the song’s lyrical weight against a scenario where Correa’s bandmates (guitarist Gavin Shields, bassist Dawid Warchol, and drummer Teresa Marinuzzi) rescue him from the world’s worst birthday party.

Above Us All was recorded, mixed, and mastered by Matt Weber (Sweet Pill, A Great Big Pile Of Leaves) at Gradwell House in Haddon Heights, NJ.