The Schisms refuse to stay down on new single 'All The Good Things'

The Schisms' new single 'All The Good Things' arrives sounding like something that has already been through a fight, which is appropriate given the message at its centre. Written by Carson Barker as a reminder not to give up when the wider world feels overwhelming, the track carries its optimism with visible bruises rather than presenting hope as something easy.

Barker initially found the core of 'All The Good Things' quickly, but the finished version emerged only after he and Grammy-winning producer Stuart Sikes repeatedly dismantled and rebuilt it. The process left the track stripped back, reshaped and deliberately worn around the edges. And in that sense, the production almost becomes part of the writing itself.

The Austin trio have always operated in the space where goth, punk, psychedelia and early rock'n'roll begin bleeding into one another, but this new release finds them pushing towards something slightly brighter without losing the tension underneath. The darkness is still present; it just no longer gets the final word.

It's a shift that's also central to forthcoming four-track EP 'Tejas'. Where previous album 'Moon' leaned more heavily into shadow and unease, the new material was partly written during a winter Barker spent isolated in a one-bedroom cabin in the Colorado mountains, when he found himself needing music that could lift him instead of simply reflecting where his head already was.

It also follows naturally from first single 'I Learn To Love', another song originally conceived as a personal mantra.

Together, the two tracks showcase a band increasingly interested in what happens when psych-goth music turns towards resilience without surrendering any of its strangeness. 'All The Good Things' is not cheerful music pretending everything will be fine. It's a battered song standing back up anyway.