Boston post-punks PILGRIMS have dropped “Blissing Hour,” the third single from their upcoming album ‘Gemini,’ and it’s doing something genuinely interesting. The track takes the cold, rigid architecture of classic post-punk and floods it with euphoric light. Icy sounds, warm overtones, and a quietly radical message underneath it all.
The band has roots that run deep and cross borders. Vocalist Juls Garat and multi-instrumentalist Claudio Marcio, originally from Chile and Colombia respectively, met in Chile and emigrated together to the U.S., eventually planting their flag in Boston. They launched under the name Pilgrims of Yearning in 2018, building a following through a string of releases, including 2022’s ‘Hadal’ EP and its standout single “La Mar.”
Now joined by bassist Sean Woodbury, the trio has shed the longer name and returned simply as PILGRIMS. The rebrand carries real weight. Marcio explains: “With the name PILGRIMS, we reflect not only our spiritual journey, but our living experience as immigrants, our pilgrimage. The new album is touched by our experience as immigrants existing in this moment and place in history. We feel a lot of people can relate to the archetype of the traveller, the wanderer.”
“Blissing Hour” carries that weight without buckling under it. Garat frames joy as resistance, and the song earns that framing completely. “Joy can be a form of resistance,” she says. “This is true for everyone, but especially for marginalized groups. If we’re not hustling, we’re supposed to be doomscrolling and getting depressed and enraged by watching the news and fighting with strangers on social media. But we can always choose stepping into the real world. We can choose community, hope, joy, art and fun. And sometimes that’s the rebellion we need.”