Montell Fish Folds Light and Grief into Three Movements in 'Days Are Getting Shorter'
There is a quiet grief to Montell Fish’s succinct collection of demos, Days Are Getting Shorter, but it never leans on sorrow for its power. Instead, it moves through stillness, through textures that whisper rather than speak, through the unlit corridors of memory where feelings linger long after people leave. These three tracks are not statements. They are offerings. Together, they sketch a story about pain, longing, faith, and the parts of ourselves we share only when no one is looking.
“Scream My Name (Acoustic)” opens with piano keys that twinkle in place, barely moving, as if unsure whether to fall or float. What follows is a vulnerable delivery from Fish. He repeats the phrase "she don't scream my name no more" not to underline it, but because it clearly won’t leave him. The repetition gathers weight with each pass, like wool fabric pulled through rain, then mud, until it is soaked and unbearably heavy. This isn’t your standard theatrical heartbreak. It is the quiet ache that arrives after the drama has faded and nobody is left in the room but you.
Despite its acoustic label, the song is rich with superb sonic layering. Ghostly harmonies and soft ambient textures swirl behind Fish’s ethereal vocals. Choirs float about, providing the kind of spiritual sheen that has long defined his work. The music passes through the body slowly, like a warm blade through butter, rich and satisfying to observe as it is to execute. Fish never forces emotion in this track. He lets it rise naturally from the interplay of sound and silence. What is unsaid matters as much as what is said.
“Bodies,” the second track, is a fleeting daydream. Lasting less than a minute, it still manages to feel full, almost too full, like something that needs to depressurize quickly. The wah-wah string plucks are dense and liquid, as if moving through tight spaces. Fish’s falsetto, honest and bright, begs for closeness, for connection, for a small moment of touch and presence. Much like the track before, what is most striking is not what he says, but what exists in the emptiness, wherein lives the desperation, the quiet acceptance, the clarity that someone is no longer there. Fish doesn’t use sound to fill the void. He uses it to illuminate it, to name it, to let us sit inside it with him.
The final track, “Days Are Getting Shorter,” feels like both a conclusion and a surrender. It begins with a slow-burning guitar progression that unfolds into something smoldering. Fish draws on his Christian faith here, not as dogma, but as a language for pain and forgiveness. "Crucify me, for all my sins, baby... You deny me... Won’t let me in," he sings, juxtaposing his commitment to betterment with the reality of messing up sometimes. The bass beats steadily beneath, a heart carrying a positive message forward. Guitar solos spiral upward like smoke looking for somewhere to land, and it all ascends, but it is not triumphant as cliché. It is real, and it trusts the listener to follow.
If the arc of this EP is as simple as heartbreak to healing, then the real intrigue lies in what is never fully resolved. Montell Fish, with his established artistry, is not offering answers. Rather, he is offering himself, openly and without demand, allowing us to witness something human and unguarded. These are not songs meant to distract from the world. They are songs that help us see it more clearly, to live among the smoky spirits and feelings that surround us, always.
Listen to Days Are Getting Shorter below:
