Kevin Bronson on August 1st, 2018

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The music of So Many Wizards over the years could be categorized loosely as “cries into the abyss” — or, more specifically, the echoes of those cries. Songwriter Nima Kazerouni’s obsession with mortality, and the finality of other things (like relationships), reveals itself in his reverb-soaked guitar-pop and wise, wistful verses. It’s the music he calls “dream punk,” an aesthetic Kazerouni has mined through the band’s ups and downs, personal travails and side projects for almost a decade now.

Two albums (the latest “Heavy Vision” in 2017), a couple of EPs and a handful of singles later, So Many Wizards keep on keepin’ on, thankfully. “Don’t Be Afraid,” the new single that comes out Friday, has been a staple of their live set for a while. It’s quite possibly the quartet’s sharpest work, marked by an urgency that befits its title, with Kazerouni repeating the chorus with the woundedness of a man who’s paid the price for not following the song’s imperative.

“This song is indeed a bit different than the standard 2- or 3-minute So Many Wizards pop song,” he says of the song, which was co-produced by Scott Barber. “It’s also little more aggressive and progressive as the song takes you to different peaks and valleys. But ultimately, I would say it’s just a progression of what we’ve been building on. It’s still ‘dream punk’ and thematically it’s similar to the many ‘Heavy Vision’ tracks about death and dying.”

Be bold here:

||| Stream: “Don’t Be Afraid”

||| Live: So Many Wizards play the Hi Hat on Aug. 9, along with Dante Elephante. Tickets.

||| Previously: “Millipede,” “Sic Boys,” “Out of My World,” “Everybody Goes Away,” “Lose Your Mind,” “Inner City,” “Nico,” “Fly a Kite”