Sometimes you need to step back from a situation to fully appreciate where you are and plot your next move. In 2018, approaching their 10th year as a band, Washington state four-piece Chastity Belt cancelled a looming tour, taking time out to each record solo material, play in other bands and reassess their reasons for making music.
With writing already under way for what would become their fourth album and followup to 2017’s I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone, the break helped the group of friends, Julia Shapiro (vocals, guitar), Lydia Lund (vocals, guitar), Gretchen Grimm (drums, vocals, guitar) and Annie Truscott (bass) to take stock. Grimm describes the purpose as “trying to weed out the parts of being in a band that feel like obligation and sticking to things that feel like a true expression of us.”