I’ll be honest from the outset here. Some Fear are a new band to my ears and my intro to the group comes on this, album number two Word Eater. The Oklahoma City group began in 2021 as a solo outlet for Branden “Bran” Palesano before growing into a full band, and Word Eater feels like the kind of record that is a group effort. It takes the slowcore foundations of the project and gives them more weight, more shape, and more confidence. You can hear a band pushing past their early lo fi beginnings and into something broader without losing the intimacy that made those roots matter in the first place.
The albums subject matter has some heft for sure. The band have this to say.
“Word Eater is a reflection of living under the U.S.’s current regime, where the lower to middle class feels powerless under the strain of the 1%. Ultimately, the band concludes that friendship and community are the only things that can get us through these hard times and help us take our power back”
These songs sit with anxiety, money worries, resentment, loneliness, and the need for closeness in a way that feels plain spoken and human. Some Fear are dealing in heavy subjects, yet the record keeps reaching for connection, which gives it a warmth that stays with you long after it ends. Let me tell you more.
The title track ‘Word Eater’ opens the album with a feeling of pressure building from somewhere deep and difficult to name. The pacing is patient, the textures are thick, as the song taps into the band’s slowcore roots. The vocals on show here are just sublime and lift the doomy chords heavenward.
‘I Don’t Want to Spend My Money’ follows with a sharper edge and a more outward frustration. The riffs grind away with purpose, but there is still melody tucked inside all that tension, this time in a slacker rock kinda way. But only kinda. You can hear the exhaustion of living under constant financial strain, of watching the numbers never stretch far enough. It’s an everyman song that really feels accessible from the opening notes.
Then ‘Stay Home’ turns that pressure inward. This is one of the album’s most claustrophobic moments, with the music feeling closed in around the voice, as if the walls are moving a little closer with each line. The stop start motif of the guitar is really unsettling. Some Fear understand how anxiety can make a small room feel even smaller, and they translate that into sound with real care. That anxiety melts away in the soaring choruses, if only momentarily. This is clever songwriting.
‘Rot’ provides us a moment of 90s grunge elation. That opening riff will have you punching the air. It then settles into another unsettling groove that keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering if we’ll hear that riff again, spoiler alert, we do!
With ‘99 Diner’, Some Fear offer one of the most vivid pieces of writing on the record. You can almost picture the harsh lighting and the stale smell hanging in the air. The song carries disgust in a very grounded way, rooted in the sort of place and mood you can recognise at once. It gives the album a slightly grimy texture at just the right moment, reminding you that adulthood often feels less cinematic than it does fluorescent.
‘Dia’ is one of the record’s emotional centres. Palesano said of ‘Dia’ that it is about “losing your identity in things outside your life, whether that is art, work, or anything else that starts to define you too completely.” That thought runs right through Word Eater. The idea behind the song is painfully familiar. So many people know what it means to pour too much of themselves into work, creativity, or expectation until they no longer know what is left underneath. Some Fear handle that feeling with real sensitivity here.
After that, ‘Harmony’ arrives like a necessary pause. The title suggests peace, though the song understands that peace is rarely simple or permanent. Instead, it feels like a brief moment where calm becomes possible. On an album so concerned with strain and silence its dynamic structure gives us it all. Whilst it does have its heavy sections this is a lighter moment in the grand scheme of the whole album.
The closing track ‘You Are Every Flower’ leaves the album in a place of tenderness. After so much heaviness, this song oozes with genuine care and quiet grace. It feels intimate but not slight, and it gives the whole record a final sense of emotional release. That closing gesture makes the album feel complete. It reminds you that even within exhaustion and uncertainty, affection still has the power to steady things.
What makes Word Eater such a strong introduction to Some Fear is the clarity of its emotional world. These songs deal with burnout, self-doubt, money, disgust, and loneliness in ways that feel grounded in daily life, yet the band shape all of that into something spacious and absorbing. You hear a group moving into a fuller sound while keeping the private ache of the material close at hand. For a first encounter, it is a memorable one. Word Eater leaves a lasting impression because it gets under your skin, one carefully chosen mouthful at a time.
Word Eater is out April 24 via Rite Field Records. You can check it out over on the Some Fear Bandcamp page.
You can follow Some Fear on social media here…
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