HOLY WARS break down new album ‘Shadow Work/Light Work’ track by track

We always knew we wanted this to open the album in the spirit of ego death, but not without acknowledging the physical reality of death too — especially with grief running through several tracks. A long and punishing “trip” in Joshua Tree became the doorway into that.

I was lost in questions of identity and the roles we play in society, and through this sense of optimistic nihilism I was left wondering what any of it really means.  This forced me to look inward and ask myself some hard questions through shadow work, and that’s what this track invites the listener to do as well.

We had been playing “O Death” in different forms during the early years of Holy Wars, always with a dramatic intro. With this album, it felt right to bring it back with updated production and set the tone.

“I Feel Everything” is the first official song we started writing for Shadow Work / Light Work. It was always meant to be a callback to our first release as a band, I Can’t Feel a Thing. After years of growth, healing, touring and multiple death-and-rebirth cycles, I wanted to reflect on the path it took to get here — the disassociation, the anger, the pain, and eventually, acceptance.

It took years to feel anything. Now, with “I Feel Everything,” it’s a call to not bury yourself in the void, but to face it and move through the emotions, no matter how overwhelming they feel.

I also love that the first lyric is “Reveal myself,” intentionally following the ego death of “O Death.” It felt right for the next track to be about seeing your real self for the first time.

With this being on the Shadow Work side of the album, I wanted to directly address the shadow self. “Shadow Walker” came to me as this fantasy-book-type character, but really, it’s the voice in your head, shaped by the influence of others, dictating how you feel, how you look, how you act, how you think until you become a deepfake of yourself.

It’s a kind of manufactured confusion — a monster we don’t even realize we’ve created. The song is a call for saving, for truth and clarity… for something real. While society would rather keep us asleep and controlled, this song was written as a begging for an awakening. 

This one came together pretty fast. We were writing with Cody Quistad of Wage War and had an instant flow. Lyrically, I wanted to capture a toxic relationship that felt like a prison. Escaping it led to threatening moments where the last words spoken felt like a curse. That same year, both of my parents passed unexpectedly.

I held onto that pain for too long, giving it power. “Crucify” became a way to reclaim that power, channeling the anger I carried for years into something that could finally move me forward. Instead of burying it, I faced it for what it was and began to heal by confronting the trauma head-on.

When people hear this, I hope it gives them the strength to let go of a harmful person or situation.

This one I fought for early on, and I’m so happy it made the album. From the demo, I knew it was something special — there’s such raw emotion in it. I love the grunge nature of the song, and the way it explores obsession.

It was written from a place of envy, desire, invisibility and that longing to be with someone — or even become them. I wanted to ride the fine line of that duality: how love and hate are the same fire, just a different burn. Love is the light, hate is the shadow, both coexisting.

I leaned into a darker lyrical tone, writing from a more parasitic point of view about how you can want someone so deeply that it turns into something consuming.

I can’t wait to play this one live.

This one has a very different tone. The meaning behind “I’ll Fuck on Your Grave” is unintentionally for the Saltburn fans and leans aggressive — especially with a lyric like “I’ll bury you face down and I will fuck on your grave.” But we knew we wanted to contrast that and make it one of the vibiest songs on the record.

I wanted it to feel like driving down an open freeway, hand-surfing the wind. Nick and I have always loved Santo & Johnny’s “Sleep Walk,” and we pulled inspiration from that, along with Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film).”

This was written for the people who try to break you — the liars, the thieves, and the ones who take advantage of your kindness. I’ve experienced that idea that “kindness is perceived as weakness,” and in this song I let the rage come through. I leaned into the villain role as a way to reclaim power.

This one is an outlier, in my opinion, and closes our Shadow Work side of the album. I love it so much, it heals me.

This one starts the Light Work side of the album and acts as a response to our first track, “O Death.” It lives in the aftermath of that ego death, peeling back layers of identity and the instinct to survive. It explores the need to create meaning and purpose as proof of existence, and the hope that some part of us carries on beyond this life.

I’ve always loved this line Chuck Palahniuk writes in Invisible Monsters: “Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I’ve ever known.” This felt deeply connected to the idea of identity being shaped, distorted, and influenced by everything around us.

The lyrics come from a POV of standing so close to the edge that your world begins to bend. In that breath, there’s a moment of truth. Sonically, the song feels lighter, faster, and brighter, setting the tone for Light Work.

Co-written with Josh Gilbert of Spiritbox, this was so fun to write. It’s fast and aggressive, but catchy as hell. I remember that day feeling completely overfed by the media and how, in a single doomscroll, you can be taken on an emotional whiplash from joy to sadness to anger to envy. That split second from “aww” to “fuck you” is incredibly unhealthy, but it’s the world we’re living in now.

The overexposure, overconsumption, oversaturation…we’re locked into this devil in our palm. “Kill the Light” is the burnout song for all of it. It tiptoes the edge of those darker thoughts: the urge to unplug completely, to disappear from the system.

Sonically, the song feels brighter than the weight of the lyrics, which is the juxtaposition [guitarist producer] Nick [Perez] and I love most. We never want to just depress. We want to empower, or at the very least say, “I feel this way… do you feel it too?”

Following the burnout in “Kill the Light” and that desire to give up, “Ceremony” explores that same feeling through a more ritualistic lens. I often get lost in the idea of parallel realities, where different versions of us are living out the choices we didn’t make. “Ceremony” holds onto the hope that something better exists — if not now, then maybe in the next life.

We started playing this one live in Europe before it was released, and the crowd instantly responded. Everyone began jumping and moshing at the breakdown. It felt so special, like we were all in this shared cathartic state together. From that reaction and the messages that followed, we knew this song was something special.

This was our first song back after the loss of my sister. After taking time to grieve and heal, it eventually felt like it was time to return and finish the record — but lyrically, it was hard to think about anything else.

Here I was again, except this time the family who made me was gone. I went through the rollercoaster of grief all over again, even feeling a sense of survivor’s guilt that I’m still here. I spiraled into questioning the point of anything. The life I had been living, and the person I was, started to feel like a memory that was fading more each day.

After questioning faith and challenging the idea that we reunite when we pass on, “Everything You” became a stream-of-consciousness release trying to process all of it. Like other songs on the album, and with the Light Work side leaning sonically brighter, we wanted to balance that with the broken nature of the lyrics.

This one ties up the family loss in a neat little “you’ll have to unpack this in therapy” bow. It was written about my estranged brother, who was part of the inspiration behind our band name, Holy Wars, after disowning our family for not following his cult-like religion.

I’ve witnessed a metaphorical holy war inside my own family for most of my life, starting in adolescence, and I’ve wanted to write about it for a long time. We’ve had the “Holy / Unholy” concept for years, but I kept it close to the chest.

This album feels like a metamorphosis — a release of long-held trauma. This felt like the right time to finally say it, not as a blanket statement on religion but from my experience of how belief — when taken to extremes — can divide, control, and destroy the very thing it claims to protect.

This one is exactly what it’s titled: a metamorphosis. It closes the album and leaves us with a sense of hope for what’s next. I needed that in my own life, and it felt right for the final song of Shadow Work / Light Work to carry that sense of transmutation, darkness into light, one life ending so another can begin.

I was going through my own transformation while writing this, and I know I’m not alone in that. Maybe people will feel that in the same way.

“Metamorphosis” leans industrial in its production, with a turn in the bridge where some of our hip-hop influences come through. The track takes its time. It doesn’t rush or force a breakdown. It moves more like a scenic route, and I think it ends everything on a peaceful note.