Straight out of Alberta, Canada, and coming to shake your speakers – meet Pariah. Pariah is a solo project of Quinn McGraw. When asked about this project, Quinn has said, “Pariah is an invitation to find our voice again, to find what still burns, and to find the light when we wander in the dark.”

There’s a strange kind of beauty in endings — a tension between loss and liberation. On this hard-hitting 5-track EP, Swansong, Pariah invites listeners into that tension, guiding them through a landscape of introspection and transcendence. From the first note to the last, these five tracks feel less like songs and more like chapters in a story of falling apart, giving up, searching, and finally persevering and rising above.

The record begins with an intro titled “Find Him” – it’s a whisper in the dark, ambient drones and faint, almost ghostly vocal fragments; it’s disorienting, fragile, and completely compelling. By the time the sound swells into the ending vocal simply stating, “Find the Pariah,” you, as the listener, have already been pulled into a world on the edge, teetering between reality and a lucid dream.

Truly kicking off the EP is “Pendulum.” If the “Find Him” intro is the eye of the storm, “Pendulum” is the storm itself. The track swings relentlessly, rhythms and riffs moving like a pendulum in constant motion. Vocals shift from raw screams to hushed reflections, echoing the oscillation of emotion — anger, regret, despair — that can trap the mind in endless cycles. There’s no respite, only the thrill of being swept along, until it crashes into silence once again.

Silence, however, is never empty. “Wanderer” (feat. Heal the Heart) opens like the first breath after a fall. The collaboration with Heal the Heart adds warmth and an almost ethereal glow, a conversation between two voices searching for meaning. The lyrics read like diary entries from a restless soul:
“For meaning in this sorrow
No life to show, no hand to hold
With nowhere to hide
I know the Truth, forgive me of my selfish pride.”

“Wanderer” is the echo that follows silence — the scream that refuses to die in the void. It’s the sound of searching for answers in a place where none exist, of dragging yourself back from the edge just to see what’s left. Pariah turns heartbreak into a kind of reckoning: the shattering moment when you realize the person you built your life around has vanished, leaving only fragments of who you thought you were. “Wanderer” doesn’t just mourn what’s lost — it haunts the spaces where identity used to live.

“Infinite Hologram” takes the narrative deeper, pulling the listener into questions of reality itself. Synths shimmer like distant stars, guitars slice through like shards of glass, and the lyrics reflect on existence in a digital and fractured world; it’s both unnerving and beautiful, a moment of revelation and confrontation with the self as both fragile and infinite. Quinn has said, “It [‘Infinite Hologram’] is rooted in stoicism, specifically memento mori, an ancient reminder that we all die.” “Infinite Hologram” is slated for the next single release on November 25, 2025.

Finally, the EP closes with the title track, “Swansong.” The song unfolds slowly, almost tenderly, with Quinn’s more ethereal vocals that are both tragic yet uplifting. In the final moments, the music unleashes and pulls you in for the ride, finally closing the circle; the journey ends as it began — with silence, but transformed.

Swansong isn’t just an EP; it’s a light in the dark. Through each track, Quinn reaches for the fragments of himself that nearly vanished, proving that even in the shadows, there is light. He offers a haven for the lost and faithless, a place where your silent screams can finally be heard. Pariah has crafted something that lingers in the mind long after the music stops, a haunting reflection on endings, beginnings, and the space between. The next single, “Infinite Hologram,” is set to be released on November 25, 2025.